TGIF
by Aunt Kitty
Summary: Some breakups are really murder… /REPOST/ Written for LosingTrack's story challenge. T for language. General Drama/Casefic/Light Romance Ducky/OFC **SEQUEL POSTED Title: OHIM Edited 9/11/2010
1. Chapter 1: Bumped

**Summary:** Some relationships can be murder. Literally.

**Note:** Mildly AU.

**Betas and cheerleaders:** _**LosingTrack**_! This story came from a challenge she had posted; you were to

select a number and it was paired with a random song. Mine was "She Only Smokes." I was in big trouble—I am an eclectic music fan, but I don't do rap and what I know about Country/Western is only slightly larger than the amount of horseradish I use in a year. (None.) But I gave it a shot—and TGIF was the result. One sequel has been posted, one is almost complete and another is in the works. I think it's safe to say her challenge got me past a nasty writer's block! (I owe you brownies.)

**Genre:** Casefic/General Drama/Romance

**Pairing:** Ducky/OFC (well, a hint of one)

**Rating/Warnings:** Rated T: contains random strong language throughout. No slash; no BDSM.

**Spoilers:** None; very vague reference to _Witch_ _Hunt_ (Abby's party).

**Time frame:** Fall 2006

**Disclaimer:** All NCIS characters are the property of Bellisarius Productions, Paramount, CBS and the appropriate copyright holders within those companies. All other characters for this story (barring real persons mentioned in passing) are my original creation and property.

* * *

**T.G.I.F**

by Aunt Kitty

Chapter One – Bumped

_**Bumped**__ refers to the corners or spine ends of a book that has been damaged by being dropped, or carelessly handled or shelved._

In 1975 Janis Ian had a big hit with "At Seventeen." I remember _my_ seventeenth year—a little before the song. I was graduating from Langley High, my boyfriend (a sophomore at University of Virginia—a 'sophisticated older man') had just asked me to marry him, and I had been accepted at Old Dominion, Darden College of Education in Norfolk on a full scholarship. Life was skittles and beer. Well—cashews and Coke, anyway.

Fast-forward 3 years. My parents were adamant that I was _not _going to get married before I had a degree in hand and had marched across the field in front of friends and family. (Hey, Mom? Dad? THANK YOU!) So I busted my ass to get out in three years. Said degree in said hand, I started working at Granby High and the wedding plans went forward. Over the next year I made some important discoveries:

One, student teaching—with a senior teacher in the room at all times—had been a breeze. Two sets of eyes to see passed notes, spitballs and contraband, four hands to snap fingers and point, two voices to demand order. Working in the real classroom, on your own, was like comparing _Hogan's Heroes_ to a real battlefield.

Two, 80% of school administrators exist to do a job and do it well. The other 20% make a teacher's life living hell. (In the ensuing 30 years, that percentage has reversed itself. In my opinion, that is.) Unfortunately, like the fringe lunatics of any group getting most of the press, the good admins were stampeded by the minority on a regular basis.

Three, _I don't like kids in large quantities. _Of any age. That one was a shocker. Really. I was fine with kids until I had to deal with the monsters every day for 7 hours a day—on my own. Newly minted teachers, of course, don't get "Honors English" or "History of Drama" let alone the hot project of the 70s, "Humanities." No, you have to put in your time red-penciling tedious essays, trying to pound "their-they're-there" into resisting minds and hunting futilely for that one student who loves to learn. _Room 222_ was a lie. The idea of doing this for the next 30 years made me want to cry.

Four, my sophisticated older man, the prince of my dreams—was a frog. A very warty frog. Was he a liar? A con man? A cheat? All three, actually. Although I wept copious tears into my I'm-just-barely-legal-to-buy-them sloe gin fizzes, once I sobered up I thanked my lucky stars that his pregnant not-so-ex-girlfriend had turned up before our 'I dos.' The $2000 I had loaned him was long gone. But because my father—who had thought Jeff was perfect son-in-law material—felt so bad about the 2K (he hadn't dissuaded me in the least), he willingly co-signed a loan to buy a small bookstore in neighboring DC. I buried myself in the eclectic used/esoteric new books store and never looked back.

Over the years I met any number of men. Most were nice. Aleksander, the gay Russian mathematician, was the best. He was totally upfront about needing a green card and I was actually toying with the notion of a marriage of convenience when his father died. Aleksi returned to Kiev and I never heard from him again. (Pity. He gave great neck rubs. He was a great cook, too. Taught me how to make some phenomenal Slavic and Russian Christmas cookies. Mmh.) The nice guys and I parted on good terms, with best wishes and a heartfelt sigh. The others—clones and cousins of Jeff, who made me pound my head in frustration over my blindness—ah, those were heartfelt curses and wishes for retribution worthy of a Danielle Steele novel. My response was always the same: drink myself blind, smoke like crazy—and then bury myself in work. Since the good guys outweighed the bad 4:1, I only went crazy every few years. Well... maybe 3:1.

So when I met Commander David Sutton, I wasn't on the rebound. My last romance—with a horticulturist associated with the National Arboretum who promised to name a hybrid rose after me (a very sweet parting gesture, I thought)—had ended months ago on a positive note. I wasn't looking for romance, but I tripped over it. Or, rather, over him.

It was a gorgeous spring day. A Monday. The van was in the shop for its zillion-mile tune-up; taking the Metro for my errands was an insanely long drive, but even keeping my pace to a casual stroll was only a forty0five minute jaunt. And the day was picture postcard perfect, crisp and clear, Washington in early spring after the snows have fled.

David was enjoying an al fresco lunch at Anacostia Park. I had met a vendor for lunch and was walking back to store via the scenic route, ignoring the scenery of the scenic route and thumbing through a catalogue of Tarot cards and other mystical items. The catalogue proved too interesting—I veered off the path, tripped over my own feet and landed half on David's bench. His lunch ended up all over his uniform; I apologized profusely and promised to pay the cleaning bill or for a replacement (Navy whites being hard to keep spotless). He demurred; I insisted. I won (I got his card); when the bill came a few days later, he refused to tell me the amount until I agreed to let him take me to lunch. "I don't normally fall in love with every woman who lands in my lap, but for you I'll make an exception."

"You get a lot of women falling into your lap?" I pretended not to hear the 'fall in love' as I munched my salad.

"Thousands," he confided, grinning.

I could believe it. He was, to use the parlance of my younger employees, "DDG." Somewhere between 45 and 55, ash blonde hair that had gone snow white with nobody noticing the difference, dark green eyes and a killer smile. Quiet, yet commanding presence (which made sense, he being a Commander and all). He was the Navy liaison with Blackthorne, a local think tank. "What do you do?"

He gave me a Cheshire cat smirk. "We _think_."

Over the next few months, things escalated rapidly (for me, anyway) and as summer moved to fall, I actually found myself thinking those scary words: _this might be the one_.

Of course, life is what happens while you're off making other plans.

The end to a perfect week: a far from perfect Friday. Or, if you will, a personalized definition of _"tres awk"_ as my youngest niece would call the moment.

What could be more flippantly romantic than dragging a picnic lunch to my sweetie's office? Nothing, according to my besotted mind. So I, dressed in my ego-enhancing favorite outfit, left the store in capable hands and showed up (unannounced, of course) lugging my special Asian chicken slaw, broccoli pasta, iced raspberry green tea (decaf for David) and—ta-da!—cream puffs. His secretary was just walking out, so I walked on in. To my delight, David was there.

To my horror, so was his wife.

Seems she lives in Los Angeles and flies out once or twice a month. He returns the favor the other weekends (so much for 'confidential Navy business'). She was cool enough to compliment my outfit, catty enough to add, 'Spring, '93, yes?'—and sympathetic enough to finish with, 'Chanel never goes out of style.' (She was in the rag biz; show-off.) It gave me the élan to smile and toss off, "Enjoy the lunch," and leave.

_Surprise! _

Yeah, just like the old story about Noah Webster—supposedly his wife walked in, caught him _in flagrante delicto_ and cried out, "Noah! I am surprised!" to which he replied, "No, my dear, _I_ am surprised, _you_ are astonished." Ba-dum-bump. I'll be here all week, please remember to tip your waitress.

I know I'm well past that age where I've got a better chance of being kidnapped by a terrorist than I do of getting married—and that's okay. At the half-century mark, I'm happy to skip the whole white lace and orange blossom crap if I could just find a guy who isn't a class-A jerk of some definition… _and_ the relationship lasts more than three months. I wasn't taking any bets. It seemed to be a mathematical law: if we made it past 90 days, I discovered he was a louse, a scoundrel, a rogue. Or, maybe after three months, I brought out those qualities.

Boy, what a depressing thought.

I drove back to M Street like a bat out of hell and put David on call block just to be safe. I then changed back into clothing more suitable for scurrying up and down rolling ladders, locked myself in my office and took my angry embarrassment out on my delinquent accounts for a couple of hours.

Threatening people with late fees, hearing suppliers' voices quivering over delayed shipments and eliciting promises of hand delivered payments the following week improved my mood—for about ten minutes. After bitching and sniping from one end of the store to the other, I was gently taken outside by Ev Campbell, my manager of more than a decade, and politely informed that if I didn't get the hell out of Dodge, she and the rest of the staff would quit en masse. (The last time she made that threat, she carried it out—nobody showed up the following day and I had to grovel to get everyone back. Grovel a lot. I also had to stay away for a week.) "Bad breakup?" Yeah, she had known me for a while.

"You could say that." I leaned my back against the cargo van and kicked my heel against the tire over and over. How adult. "He's _married_."

"Sandy … He's not worth it." She slipped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick hug. "You deserve better. Much better." She left it at that; she didn't ask for details, and I sure as hell wasn't in the mood to give them.

"Can I pick 'em… or can I pick 'em?" I muttered morosely.

She ducked into the office and returned with my purse, which she none-too-delicately shoved into my unresisting hands. "Go. Don't come back. I'll turn the office lights off." She plainly remembered my M.O. from my prior big pileups on the romantic freeway. I went. I didn't plan to come back. And if she turned the lights off—well, hell, it would match my mood.

With a stop at Circle K for cigarettes (buy 2, get 1 free on Camels—it still killed most of a $20; when the hell did smokes get so high?) I stomped the half-mile or so down the road to The Salty Dog. Not the closest bar, true, but it's got a four-hour happy hour on Fridays and staff that will let you sit in a corner and pickle yourself and make sure you get home in one piece. Plus, it's right down the way from the Navy Yard, so infrequent bar fights are settled very, _very_ quickly.

I parked my sorry butt on a corner stool as far away from the door as possible. Happy hour? What a misnomer—for me, anyway. "Strawberry margarita. Frozen. Extra large. Double." Woo-hoo, first of five fruits and veggies for the day.

"Half price appetizers until seven," the bartender encouraged.

Never did have lunch, come to think of it. "Okay, gimme a plate of Whupass. Extra guacamole and lots of chopped tomatoes." Two more for the food pyramid. "Got a match?"

He handed me a box of small wooden matches with The Salty Dog logo—a bulldog in a sailor's suit—on the front. I shredded the wrapper to a pack of cigarettes and shook my head as I lit the first stick. I swear, the last time I broke up, smokes were half what they are now. Hmm. The last _breakup_ was a couple of years ago, but I had relied on cigarettes stuck in the back of the fridge—bought during the Clinton administration—so I could be right on the price. But they still were just what I needed to hit that achy-breaky spot.

"Well, hel-_loooooo_ there!"

I almost groaned out loud. Spare me the former frat boys on the Friday night prowl. "Hi," I said shortly, turning back to my margarita, hoping he'd take the hint.

He didn't. "I'm Tony." He flashed his pearly whites.

"I'm not."

He laughed like I was the lead act at Comedy Tonight. Please. It wasn't that funny. "I've never seen you before."

It was sorely tempting to tell him I'd had the bookstore down the road for almost thirty years—but that might encourage his GQ-and-Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition-reading self to cross my front door. Pass. "Nope."

"Tony?" Great. Two of them. This one didn't look like a Predatory Pi Kappa at least. He looked like the kid the Greeks bullied into writing papers. Jeez. I really should go home and drink. Cheaper, no guys hitting on you… but I don't like smoking in the house. (Plus, I make crappy margaritas.) Not to mention the killer nachos, which had arrived. I took a last drag on my cigarette, ground it in the ashtray and attacked the nachos.

"Hey, those look great. Are they as good as they look?"

Before I could say anything, his friend piped up. "You got those last Friday, Tony, with the extra jalapeños and—"

"Did I ask for your input, Probie?" The smile was still game-show sharp, but the tone was off a notch from before.

"Listen, I'm old enough to be your mo—" I reconsidered. "Much older sister." I figured anyone over 35 would be out of range for Tony the Tiger; he was just hitting on me to keep in practice. "I came in for a drink. By myself. And a smoke. By myself." And after my lunchtime melodrama, I didn't want the time of day from anyone with a Y chromosome.

He threw his arms wide. "But it's _happy _hour! Emphasis on _happy_! You need someone to help you be _happy_!" He was the self-appointed happiness czar. Goodie.

"And _my_ emphasis was on 'by myself.' Said it twice, even." Why was I talking to this jerk? Would I never learn? I let out a breath and tried to be polite. "Sorry. It's been a bad day." Hopefully he wouldn't take that as encouragement.

"No problem. Been there, done that."

"I just really… _really_… want to be left alone. Please." Maybe sincerity would succeed where sarcasm had failed.

"Gotcha." Proving that there is some sort of higher power in the universe and it just might be female, he grabbed his friend's arm and tugged him a few feet away.

I picked at my nachos and ran through my first margarita and half a pack of Camels, giving the bartender a finger up and a point to the glass when I was down to the last half inch. The crowd around Tony and Probie (it had to be his last name, no parent would give a kid _Probie_ for a first name without considering the money it would cost in shrink bills) had tripled. Another nerdy guy with round glasses, a mop of wavy dark hair and a kind of scared, rabbit-y look to him—Tony probably steamrolled over him, too. Two young women—one looked like she could be a model or maybe a club singer; every time Tony started going over the top, she'd lean over and say something to him that would smack him back down to earth. I immediately liked her. The other sounded like she was maybe in her thirties, but looked like she was shooting for thirteen. She kind of reminded me of my youngest niece, Sharon. Obviously dyed black hair, overdone make up, tats, outrageous clothes—a Goth by anyone's definition, but with a _joie de vivre_ most Goths would sneer at. I didn't know her name, but I'd seen her in the store a couple of times. (She _was_ pretty memorable.) So when she got shuffled to the edge of the group and made a pouting frown at my cigarette (number 11) and said, "Those'll kill ya," I didn't take much offense.

Instead, I flipped the pack over to the Surgeon General's warning. "I'll be damned. You're right." I took a drag and blew the smoke away from us. "Of course, the way people drive in this town, I'm probably gonna get picked off crossing the street before Joe Camel gets me in his crosshairs." She wriggled her shoulders and bobbed her head in a _comme ci,__comme ça_ gesture. "Besides, I don't smoke."

She looked at the overflowing ashtray and lifted an eyebrow. "You're doing one heck of a good imitation, then."

That made me laugh. "Well, you know how it is. Sometimes the only cure for what ails ya is a smoke and a drink." My second fishbowl-sized margarita arrived. "Definitely a drink."

"I'll get that." The voice came from over my left shoulder.

My peripheral vision caught a slick suit closer to my age than Tony and his crowd. "No, thanks."

"Pretty lady like you alone on Friday night—"

"No_ thanks._" There was something that reminded me of dear departed Dave—minus his Navy duds. I wanted to throttle him. (David, too, for that matter. Despite my strawberry anesthesia, I was still 'righteously pissed' at him. The idea of closing my fingers around his neck and squeezing the life out of him had a certain appeal.) (Oh, my, maybe I shouldn't share that with the universe.) "I pay my own way." I deliberately turned toward not-Sharon-but-a-good-substitute and realized my cigarette had gone out. I reached for the matches and found my unwanted friend reaching for them, too.

"Allow me."

"No." My voice was sharper and louder than I'd planned, and it caught the attention of Tony and his group. Their conversation screeched to a halt as they all gave him what my mother called 'the hairy eyeball.' Particularly the petite brunette who kept Tony in line—she looked like she could kill with a snap of her fingers. I _definitely_ liked her. With a muttered comment that it was probably better I couldn't understand my 'friend' melted back into the crowd.

"Some guys just don't understand 'no,'" not-Sharon said sympathetically.

"Yeah, well… I'm just not in the mood for crap like that tonight."

She cocked her head. "I know you from somewhere, I just can't place it."

"See people out of their element…" I trailed off. Jeez. I came in to get lost in a margarita, not to chitchat with the populace.

She snapped her fingers. "Papyrus!"

I sighed. "Yep."

The last member of the group, a man a few years older than I with gorgeous blue eyes (uh-oh, warning buzzer—danger Will Robinson, danger!) looked up. "I thought you looked familiar. You were kind enough to locate a copy of _Rutlidge's Encyclopédique de Poisons, les Toxines et les Venins_ for me." His pronunciation was flawless.

Tracking down a book on poison… published only in French… from the 1920s and long out of print … had been a challenge. "Hope you enjoyed it." Enjoyed probably wasn't my best choice of words, given the topic. I sure had enjoyed the $400 sale, though.

"It was riveting. Astonishing." I remembered some of the other purchases from his customer history—opera, ethnology, etymology, history of printmaking, medical and surgery reference books from pre-1900, plus a plethora of mystery authors, just to name a few. Astonishing kind of applied to him, too. I had only dealt with him a few times, but he had quite a sales history over the years. You tend to remember sales cards like his—they help make the payroll.

Okay, I was still pissed at the male half of the species, but I wasn't going to let David screw me over professionally as well as personally. "You used to bring your mother in."

He looked surprised—and pleased. "It's been quite some time. At least ten or fifteen years."

I wracked my brain. "She wanted… an OED. Unabridged."

He grinned. "Until she discovered that the regular-sized print version ran twenty volumes and would cost _well_ in excess of a thousand dollars. She decided to cease challenging in Scrabble and concentrate more on bridge." He tapped a finger to his chin. "She also became quite captivated by a dress you were wearing, wouldn't give me a moment's peace until I had tracked one down for her."

The infamous Chanel suit. "I remember. Hope she liked it." I was considering burning mine.

"Oh, it's one of her favorites. She swears it knocks twenty years off her age."

Nifty. I smiled politely and turned away. Ugh. Lounge Lizard was two seats down. If I moved, would I find a corner in the bar where people would leave me alone?

I managed to stay out of future talk by concentrating on my cooling nachos and staring at the row of exotic liqueurs along the back of the bar and working on my second—then third—drink. The nudge for another cigarette asserted itself; I almost jumped when a lit match came up to the end of the cigarette, lighting it before I had a chance to say yea or nay. I turned, ready to shoot the bar reptile down in flames as it were, and found myself looking into slightly amused blue eyes. I bit back my snarky comment. "Uh—thanks."

"You're welcome. I may decry the habit—"

"But you're a gentleman, nonetheless."

He inclined his head slightly. "I try." I couldn't help but smile; he wasn't the type I usually drifted toward, but he was nice (as well as good-looking). And god knows my usual type had given me some real winners over the years. "I heard you tell Abby you don't smoke." He looked faintly perplexed.

"I don't." He cocked his head further and gave me an, 'oh, _really_?' look. "Really, I don't."

"You can quit anytime?"

His smile should have made me want to slap him silly, but instead it made me laugh. "No… because I'm not really smoking. Not like other people who smoke. I just smoke once in a while."

"Mm-hmm. Far be it for me to act as your conscience—"

"No, really, the last time I smoked was—" I had to do some mental math. "Two years ago. Almost three."

"Good heavens! Why end such a successful break of an addiction now?" He held up a hand. "I apologize. That was beyond discourteous of me. It was absolutely boorish."

I shrugged. "I'm not offended. It's… habit. On occasion. I knew a writer who hated even being around cigarettes—but when she was doing a final draft, she chain-smoked like she owned stock in RJ Reynolds."

"More a psychological need than a physical one." He looked at me shrewdly.

I didn't ask if he meant Charlotte —or me. I held up my credit card for the bartender and knocked back the last of my final drink. It was still early enough to be safe walking back to the store, even after my primarily liquid dinner. I smiled at him benignly. "Dunno."

"Are you going back to the store?"

"Yep. Long weekend ahead." I made a snap decision right then to completely rearrange the store layout. Booze and cigarettes would distract me only so long; a massive project would be better. "Moving everything in the store; total reorganization."

He shuddered faintly. "Did you walk?"

"Sure didn't drive."

"Will you be all right going back? Would you like a ride?"

I stopped in mid-signature, taken aback. There was none of the 'hey baby, hey baby' you normally get at that hour and with that question. There was just… concern. "No, I'm… I'm okay." The bitchiness drained from me. "Thank you." I handed the credit slip back to the bartender and slid off the stool.

"Be careful." He smiled, taking the sting out of the words.

"Angels and ministers of grace will defend me," I misquoted.

"_Hamlet_."

Of course he'd know that. "_Star Trek_, too, I believe." Some perverse imp gave me a mental tap on the shoulder. "Our revels… now… are ended." The words came from memory long ago, halting at first. "These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air." I could feel him staring as I pulled out the words. "And like the… the baseless fabric of this vision… the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself," I was on a roll. "Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded… leave not a rack behind." A chill swept over me. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on… and our little life… is rounded… with a sleep."

He stared at me for the longest moment. "_The Tempest_." His voice was barely audible.

Nobody else had heard my absurd tangent. "Mmh," I said in agreement. I was still a little unsettled; where the _hell_ had that come from and why? Jesus, I memorized that for a sixth grade recital! I shoved my cigarettes into my purse. "Good night." Out of left field, a name popped into my head. "Good night," I repeated, "Dr. Mallard." Without waiting for an acknowledgement, I slipped through the crowd and into the night.

_Our revels now are ended…_ I thought of Dave and squeezed my eyes shut. _Shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded… leave not a rack behind._

One can only hope.

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-1-


	2. Chapter 2: Errata

**Chapter Two – Errata**

_**Errata**__—a list of errors and their corrections or additions to the printing, found after book has been printed, usually on separate sheet or slip of paper. The plural of erratum. (Note: If the slip of paper does not make a correction, but rather supplies additional information, it is called an "addenda slip".)_

* * *

Evelyn was just closing up when I got back. Since she had been grousing about the layout of the store for years, I considered this "put up or shut up" time. She said, "About time," promised to call everyone on her way home and left it at that. Before sacking out on the daybed in my office, I stuck a sign in the window letting people know we would be cleaning house all weekend—shop if you dare, you might be put to work.

Dreamless sleep was a fruitless wish. David haunted me at every turn, cajoling one moment, mocking the next. I turned on the TV and found a _Stargate SG-1_ marathon on the SciFi channel. Gunfire, lasers and witty dialogue lulled me back to sleep.

I jumped out of bed at an obscenely early hour. More accurately, I picked myself off the floor. At some point during the night I had dragged a blanket and pillow into the Theatre section; the television continued to blare a room away, now calling out the virtues of some do-it-yourself hair gizmo (for _only_ three payments of $19.99—BUT WAIT!!!). I hunted down my purse (by the back door, where I _never_ put it—I was apparently pretty loaded when I came "home") and drove the van over to Salty Dog. It wasn't until I pulled into their parking lot that I realized… the van had been unlocked. Oh, crap. Either I had gotten back from my "lunch" with David so pissed off that I hadn't locked the van (not likely, but not impossible) or I had taken a midnight drive (also not likely but—unfortunately—also not impossible). I made a careful inspection of the van; no bumps, no bruises, but the right rear quarter panel was covered in mud. Like a flashback scene on _Murder, She Wrote_ I had a crystal clear memory of leaning against that panel before my trip to the bar. Leaning against a relatively pristine panel.

Oh, _crap_ was right.

Sunnuvvabitch, double damn and oh _hell _for good measure. I have a personal hatred of drunk drivers—and here it appeared I had been my own worst enemy. I could only hope the cops wouldn't be breaking down my door later on.

I focused back on the task at hand: supplies to move a city block's worth of books. I relieved The Dog's trash bin of any usable cardboard boxes and made my way back to the store, hitting every business between points A and B and scavenging any decent boxes. I threw them into the store and went out for another forage in the opposite direction. A drive through McDonald's for what passes for food at zero-dark-thirty a.m., dump boxes again then back for another run. By the time I hit the market for munchies, soda and—most importantly, a large supply of beer and wine coolers—I had collected at least fifty boxes. I killed another hour adding up linear footage and then writing subjects and genres on typing paper and taping them to the bookshelves. I might not know where I'm going in the romance department, but by god I could move stuff.

I leaned against the brick ledge under the front window smoking the first of many and sipping on a wine cooler (nicely disguised in my thermal coffee mug in case the local constabularies walked past) and watching the morning traffic stagger by. The usual collection of old and new, Fords, Chevvies, SUVs (boo, hiss), Saturns, VWs, a hearse, a—

Hearse?

I did a classic double take, but the vintage deathmobile was already gone. Hmm. I thought back to my semi-unwanted companions of the night before; that was just the kind of car I could picture for… what's her name, not Sharon—Gabby? No, Abby. Yeah, a hearse was definitely her kind of car. Maybe I'd see her later, if that had been her.

I gave myself a mental head smack. I didn't need to have more people in my life! And I definitely didn't need more people underfoot unless they planned to help with the bookseller do-si-do. I heard the back door slam; a few moments later, the door next to me opened and Evelyn leaned next to me on the bricks. "Starting early, I see," she commented.

"I was going to start boxing the kids' section in a minute—"

"I didn't mean the books." She looked pointedly at my mug and cigarette. With a sigh, I ground the butt under my heel. "Want to tell me about the cheating bastard?"

David's face popped in front of my eyes, and anger warred with tears. Anger won. "No," I said shortly. I let out a deep breath. "Not yet. But, thanks."

"No charge. So, you get much sleep?"

My mind flashed on the dirty van and I hoped I didn't look as guilty as I felt. "Yeah, I think so."

"Well, you were pretty upset when you called me—"

"I called you? When?"

"Ten, quarter after, something like that. You were… you were really upset about David."

My hands went cold. "What did I say?" My voice was amazingly level.

I could feel her stare at me for a long moment. "You didn't really say much. You kind of lost the thread of the conversation a lot. Then you said you were going back to sleep." She looked at me for a long moment. "Y'know, if he really deserves… whacking or something… I met a customer a couple of months ago who said she has someone in her office who's—" her voice dropped. "A Mossad officer."

"Mossad? As in Israeli assassin?" I looked at her in askance—and interest. I almost slapped myself; how could I even think something like that after skating 'this close' to driving over in the middle of a drinking binge to give him a piece of my mind? "No, no, I shouldn't even think like that."

"You sure?" She stared into my eyes. "Public service?"

It _was_ tempting. I had a feeling his wife's surprise was a repeat performance. Leopards don't change their spots.

Mossad officer. Hmm.

But…

Having David "whacked" smacked of overkill. Barely. A little "heat of the moment" as well. Revenge is a dish best served cold. And my heart was very, very cold. Maybe we could just pretend to kill him—give him a good scare. Now _that_ had definite appeal. "No," I said slowly, "I'm sure karma will catch up with him." After I did.

As I pushed myself off the wall, another head-turn-worthy car cruised by. I had a sudden flash of Isadora Duncan or a movie star from the 30s or 40s being ferried to an awards show. You don't see many vintage cars back East—the salt on the roads is a killer. Last time I saw anything that hot was my trip to Los Angeles using Book Expo as an excuse. Maybe there was a vintage car group having a meet—that would explain both the hearse and the Bugatti or whatever it was. Hmmm, that could make a good customer draw… later. Much later.

Considering that we were going to be moving close to a million books over the next 48 hours, the employee wigging-out was minimal. When the neighbor immediately to our left moved out (back when the Carters moved back to Plains), we completely reorganized the store when we doubled our space. After cramming "ten pounds of beans in a five pound sack" bookshelf-wise for the next five years, we were hovering at the back door when the neighbors to the right were moving out the front door. No reorganization, just shoving the overflow wherever it would fit. "We'll redo it later," Al (my manager at the time) promised. Another expansion two years later: same promise, different manager. Here we are half a decade into the 21st Century having inched our way down the entire block and chaos now reigned supreme. I had taken copious notes over the years from Phil and Jackie Smith in Long Beach on the bookseller's version of Parkinson's Law—books expand to fill the space available… then you come up with more space. Unfortunately, that meant the arrangement of topics and genres made less and less sense over the years, and we had to make do with the available room; for a decade, we'd been the only business on M Street from 1st Street to New Jersey. The only trick left is to go skyward and add floors or start taking over across the street, like Powell's did in Portland. Neither option is appealing. For the most part our customers have had a sense of humor about it and the prerequisite for any new employee is a good sense of direction while following a lousy map.

Evelyn had made good use our cell phone plan the night before and massed the troops—every full-time, part-time or casual employee on the books—and was directing traffic like the dancing cop on classic _Candid Camera_. Once she was sure that things were being labeled properly and ferried to and fro correctly, she pulled the three people best qualified to recognize rare and collectible items and put them to re-shelving and culling the fiction areas while she and I started the same task on the massive nonfiction sections. "This is a dumbass question, but did you bring stuff out of the storage room?"

'The storage room' was the back half of the last building we had claimed to the east. It was so old, it didn't have electricity; the prior owners had argued that since customers were never in there, it wasn't necessary. (The front half had gotten wired back in the thirties.) The city had left them alone for decades; they were making "update" noises at me, now, and had been since I bought it over a decade ago, but I had managed to stall them—bringing the existing wiring up to code had cost a fortune. "Of course I didn't. First we reorganize, then we fill," I said. To be honest, it hadn't occurred to me. The century-plus room was full of boxes of books from estate sales and store closings; there was stuff in there literally going back to 1990. The store cats made me feel pretty sure we didn't have any critters, but the dust was probably two inches deep in the far corners. I was looking forward to working that room like I look forward to dental surgery.

By mid-afternoon we had all reached the chips-and-M&Ms-are-fine-but-I-need-_real_-food stage and were plopped in the main room chewing on pizza. We had had a light flow of customers, all of them knowledgeable enough in the ways of the store that they found what they needed either where it had been the day before, where it was in transit in a box, or where it was in its new home. Several promised to come back during the week and help fine tune the order of the books; one promised to pick up all the empty boxes once we were completely through with them. (No altruism whatsoever—he was moving the next month.)

I parked myself half out the back door, keeping the smoke from my cigarettes as far away from the interior as possible. The hanging bell at the front door tinkled; I could hear a couple of people enter and slip into the stacks. (At least one courageous customer tripped, but fortunately didn't fall. At any rate, "Oh, son-of-a-mother!" is a repeatable cuss word.) Two of the part-timers were having a physical discussion in the middle of the room, 'debating' an upcoming promotion—both of them trained at the same karate dojo; one was testing for a red belt, the other for her purple. "Don't kill each other," I called. "The carpet's old and the blood won't come out." A _whump_ punctuated my comment as Valerie showed Alan how to improve his ankle sweep. "Listen, you bleed and you get to tear up _all_ the carpet!"

There was a laugh from a hidden corner. "And there will _still_ be evidence in the floor underneath!" A grinning face framed with two inky pigtails popped around the bookcase.

It took me half a second. "Abby, right?"

"Right!" She bounded into view and picked her way across the obstacle course. She glimpsed the cigarette but didn't say anything. "_Ducky_ said that _you_ said you were rearranging the whole store this weekend but I didn't believe him so I decided to come over to see for myself and my god, you really are, this is, like, worse than trying to rearrange my kitchen without taking anything out of the room!"

Holy cow, she talked fast. "It's, um, been interesting," I finally managed.

"I can't imagine trying to move all of these books, I mean every time I come in here I'm just _amazed_ at the amount of stuff you have crammed in all these corners, it's like that science fiction show, _Dr. Who_, he's got this police box, it's a police box on the outside, like they have in England, but on the inside, whoa! It's this huge thing, it's like a spaceship, so on the outside it's this dinky box but the inside it's gigantic! Like your store, it's small on the outside, well, not really _small_, it's _big_, it takes up this whole block, but inside you have like a hundred million books, you have way more than you think you can fit—"

I couldn't decide if I'd had too many wine coolers—or too few. My head was spinning trying to keep up.

"—if you need help, I'd be more than happy, I saw the sign on the door and I love organizing things, my books at home I have arranged according to the Library of Congress, I prefer that to the Dewey Decimal System—"

"Abigail, let the poor woman breathe."

Abby chortled, a sound that just invited people to join in the merriment. I actually wouldn't mind having her help out—she was fun, energetic… and the young, male members of the staff were looking at her with such longing expressions, I was sure she could get them to do anything with just a crook of her finger. Even clear out that storeroom. "Oh, Ducky, I'm not that bad, am I?"

Ducky? I caught my breath as her companion followed her from the stacks. Ah. Ducky. Dr. Mallard. What a nickname, poor guy.

"No, my dear, of course not. You're just… enthusiastic." He gave her a mock-stern look. "How many Caf-pows did you have today?"

She rolled her eyes in an, 'oh please' look that made me swear she was Sharon. "Like I counted?"

He had made his way over to where we stood. "You might as well take her up on her offer, she won't be asleep until dawn anyway."

Their easy give-and-take made me wonder if they were related as well as colleagues. Father and daughter? Nah. Uncle and niece? Maybe. "Actually…" I leaned over and, in a low voice, described in excruciating detail the disaster in the back room. Abby's eyes lit up, and her grin grew as I talked.

"Grungy? Like, really dirty and disgusting?" she whispered. "Like, archaeological dig time?"

"Well, you don't need inoculations, but you will need a long, hot bath after."

"Cool."

"You won't have long to work in there, it doesn't have lighting—it's so old, it doesn't even have wiring."

She gasped. "Oh! I have a friend—he's teaching me electrical wiring, he helps with Habitat—I'm sure he could come over, we could both come over, help you do something—" Okay, the gasp wasn't from shock and horror.

"I'll definitely take you up on it—on a day when we have more daylight." I couldn't help but smile at her delighted grin. "Now, you sound like you can ride herd on peons."

"Definitely," Dr. Mallard murmured.

"Good. I have a couple just made for this job. Alan? Geoff?" I raised my voice; the testing-for-red-belt and his friend on the sidelines hurried over. "Remember how you were saying last month that we really needed to go through the storeroom?" They looked at me uncertainly. "Well, Abby—oh, this is Abby… Sciuto, boys—" she didn't wince, so I hadn't mangled her name too badly.

"Hi!" she chirped.

"Abby has volunteered to help out in the storeroom. I figure you could be her strong-arms—help move the boxes, run lines to put fans in the window to try and suck out some of the dirt, sort and clean things and box 'em up… just help Abby in the dungeon."

"Dungeon. Heh, heh, heh," she chuckled, rubbing her hands together gleefully. "I like the sound of that."

They were sold. They headed for the far end of the store, Abby with her arms draped over their shoulders and chattering at light speed, both boys looking up at her with puppy eyes. Damn, she was tall!

Evelyn sidled over to us. "Is she for hire? I think she could get them to paint this place with toothbrushes." Behind her, the others took the cue that work needed to resume and scattered to their appointed tasks.

"Abby can be very… persuasive, " Dr. Mallard said with a badly repressed smile.

"Your daughter?" Evelyn is good at cutting to the chase; she's the best manager I've ever had.

"Heavens, no. Abby and I work together at NCIS." That explained why they were at Salty Dog; it was basically right across the street. "She's our forensic specialist."

I know what it takes to get a job like that; you're not talking about the six-month-certificate programs you see advertised during the trash talk shows and Judge Whoozit's Court on daytime TV. Definitely some smarts upstairs.

"Ah. You're the Director, Dr. Mallard?" I looked a little more closely; was Evelyn throwing out a line?

He laughed roundly. "Oh, my gracious! No, no, I'm the medical examiner. And please—call me Ducky." His look included both of us. "Everyone does."

"So you're an M.D., not a PhD." She was definitely interested. Not her usual type, but, hey—I couldn't really blame her.

"I'm sorry—a fudd?"

"PhD," I explained. "Ph, pronounced like an 'f.' Fudd."

"Ah. You know, the use of ph instead of f has much to do with the originating language for a particular word. For example—"

I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. Evelyn had a look of polite interest on her face—another reason she's a good manager, she can feign interest when a customer goes on a tangent, and listen for just long enough to be courteous. Then—

"Wow. I never knew that, Dr. Mallard." She smiled brightly. "It always amazes me when you come in the store, you have such an incredible store of information."

"It's _Ducky_. Years of acquisition," he said ruefully. "I'm afraid I go off at the least provocation."

"_**Ev-vie**_!" A chorus of at least three voices all but screamed from what sounded as far away as the state line.

"Duty calls," she said, ducking out and heading for the west wing. I knew there would be a sigh of relief once she was out of earshot. She may have remembered that Dr. Mallard had an eclectic collection of information but she had apparently forgotten his love of sharing said information.

"Where are the cats?"

I tapped a cigarette out of the pack. "In the office. Once they saw what we were doing, they headed for the hills." He didn't say anything, but he did flick a glance at the cigarette I was pulling out. After a split second, I reconsidered and pushed it back in and tucked the pack in my shirt pocket.

"You really don't normally smoke?" he asked mildly.

I shook my head. "Don't usually drink, either." I waggled my empty wine cooler. "Just a once in a while thing."

"Every three years or so." I looked at him sharply. "I'm sorry… last night you said—"

I nodded. "Yeah, I remember."

"I thought that if it had been that long since you had smoked then perhaps the same time frame…"

"And… you'd mostly be right."

He watched me tap the empty bottle against my hip, following the arc as I tossed it into the recycle bin. "He must have hurt you dreadfully."

For a moment, I forgot to breathe. Finally I managed, "_What_?"

"Oh, dear… I'm _so_ sorry." He stared at the ground. "Sometimes I forget to whom I'm speaking, I did _not_ intend to—to be so familiar—"

As quickly as my ire had been raised it disappeared. "That's—that's okay. You just…" My lips twisted in a mockery of a smile, thinking about what—whom—I had walked into the day before. "…surprised me."

"Please accept my apologies." He looked up; his eyes looked absolutely grieved.

I put a hand on his arm. "Forgiven. Totally." I gave him what I hoped was a friendly smile. "Ducky."

"Thank you."

"And you're absolutely right about him." Holy hell, where did those words come from? Great. From me. My big, fat mouth. "So, you're a psychic medical examiner, huh?" It wasn't my best attempt at humor, but it was better than nothing.

"Not quite." He looked like he was warring with himself. "But… if you need an impartial ear…" he spread his hands. "My patients say I'm a good listener."

I almost laughed. "Your patients? I thought you were the medical examiner."

"I am, I am. The dead can tell you a great many things. They just speak very softly."

"Hmm." Strangely enough, it was actually tempting—but you don't want to use a customer for a cut-rate psychiatrist. Salve labor is one thing—bookstore customers tend to love playing with books, even doing scutwork for free. But that was a different line altogether.

"Now—" he clapped his hands together and rubbed them enthusiastically, much as Abby had done. "How can I be of assistance?"

"You really want to spend the rest of your Saturday mucking through books, too?"

"A bibliophile never gives up the chance to play with bound paper," he said as we strolled back into the store. "When I go to someone's home for the first time, the first thing I make note of is their book collection."

"So do I," I grinned. "Well, for me, it's professional curiosity."

"It can tell you a great deal about them. Oh, what they read, of course—but how are they arranged? In what order? Is it organized or a—a train wreck? Unrelieved, or broken up with collectibles and mementoes? If the latter, what breaks up the line?" He folded his arms. "The saddest bookcase I ever saw was a young woman who had one—_one_—bookcase. Of the five shelves, only _two_ had books on them. A few standard reference books—dictionary, thesaurus and the like—and the most current pop bestsellers. You didn't need to box them to move them; you could carry the lot in your arms in one trip. It was absolutely tragic, in my mind."

"Didn't date her long, eh?" I clamped my lips shut. Sometimes I think I need the 7-second delay button the radio stations have. This was one of those times.

Before I could apologize, he gave me a rueful smile. "I'm afraid not. We had little to... talk about." His eyes had a wicked twinkle that made me think there had been something other than books to discuss at least once or twice.

"If you really want to help—"

"I would not have otherwise offered."

"What would you like to tackle?"

"Where can I be of the greatest help?" He smiled. "I feel as though we're in a bartering war."

Close enough. "Actually… from what you've bought, I know you have a pretty good grasp on vintage and collectible valuations. Evvie and I have been going through the reference and non-fiction as we re-shelve, pulling things that need to be revalued and possibly put online." I looked at him hopefully.

"Lead on, McDuff," he said expansively, with more than a hint of a brogue.

With a line like that, it made sense to start him in the Poetry/Plays/Theatre area. I gave him some general suggestions for what to look for and the methodology of moving sections of books and stepped back to watch.

He pulled out several items and flipped to the price page on each. "Should all of the Cliff's Notes be priced the same?"

"Good question. No. Some of them have been on the shelf for ten years, some ten days. The older ones are cheaper, and the customer feels they've hit the lottery."

He laughed and returned to the shelves. He scanned the titles methodically, pulling several volumes, checking prices and returning them to their spots. At the end of the first shelf, he had three in the "?" pile. One was a reference on the restoration of the Globe Theatre ("I believe the book has been reissued, but if I remember correctly this edition has far superior illustrations and plates. I'd double the price"), another, a book on arms and armor ("Misfiled… and the spine needs mending. Just a cheap gift book, I'd simply drop the price rather than spend an excessive amount of time restoring it.") and a third, a collection of Gilbert and Sullivan from the 20s ("I don't know if this is better in theatre or music, but I'd have a separate section for them, regardless. And I'd put the value more around… fifty or sixty dollars."). He was dead on for all three.

"You wouldn't want to—oh, I dunno, quit NCIS and come work for me?"

He gave me a delighted grin. "No… but it's nice to know I have other career options." He took the index card marked "AUDITED" from me and stuck it between the first two books of the shelf and moved to the next row. I moved across the way and started on the gardening books.

There was a steady flow of people running to and fro with boxes of books. Several times I noticed Geoff or Alan dash through toward the office only to speed back with something in tow: fans; heavy duty extension cords; a variety of cleaners; paper towels; boxes; even the vacuum at one point.

I watched in amazement at the last transport. Geoff was running as fast as possible, dragging the Kirby we'd named Two Ton Tessie behind him. "Hey, slow down!"

He stopped for the briefest moment. "Sorry, Sandy, but—Abby—Abby _needs_ this!"

I stared after him as he disappeared with a rattle and a clunk. "Evelyn was right. Abby could get them to paint this place with toothbrushes."

"Probably their own brushes, no less." He stuck another card onto a shelf and moved to the next bookcase. "Oh, I love this play!"

I glanced over and laughed. "That's how Pyewacket got his name."

"You have a Siamese?"

"Mm-hmm. One of our customers found a surprise litter in her back yard a couple of springs ago. He's certainly not a purebred, but he doesn't think so. He sure has the Siamese yowl and the lavender eyes."

"Here at the store, or at home?"

"Here. They're all being awfully quiet, they may be scared we're moving." I stuck a card into the last shelf of the gardening section and moved on to the Mythology and Religion section. I picked up a particularly lovely edition of an old favorite—Egyptian Book of the Dead—and sighed. Oh, what the hell… "I found out he was married." There was a long silence; when I looked up, he had turned from the books and was looking at me with nothing but sympathy, waiting for me to go on. He had no trouble following a sudden turn in the conversation. "Been seeing him for a little over six months, had no clue…" I ran through the past half year. "No… I _ignored_ all the clues. I don't know if the wife was the last to know in this case. I have a feeling she's gone through this before."

"I'm so very sorry." He had moved closer but wasn't touching. He had an excellent grasp of personal boundaries.

I shrugged, trying to make light of it. "Could have been worse_. I_ could have been the wife."

He met my smile with a small one of his own. "Perhaps I'm too old for this day and age. I have a hard time comprehending infidelity. If your circumstances change, you no longer love one another—divorce is an option."

"Unless you're Catholic," I put in my two cents' worth.

"True. Though I've known many who did… Or if you cannot remain faithful, simply don't wed in the first place. The pain won't be lessened, but the consequences won't be so severe. Hopefully, no children to be hurt if nothing else."

I thought of my fiancé lo those many years ago. He had married that ex-girlfriend… then cheated on her, too. Only five years down the road, they had divorced—after three kids. "Yeah."

"That's what called us in this morning. Abby and I don't generally work Saturdays, but a Naval officer was discovered early this morning. Strangled. Normally I wouldn't say anything, but the news crews were there already—some of the basic facts will be on the news tonight, so I'm not breaking any confidentially." He lowered his voice. "According to his secretary, his wife had just discovered…" he gave me a look.

"Aaah. Gotcha."

"Apparently strangled him with her scarf. Well, someone did, and she's the most likely suspect. Tragic. But some men…"

"Never learn. He probably did it before, just got caught this time."

"You may very well be correct." He looked up at me over the tops of his glasses. He really did have lovely eyes. "So you see, my dear… unfortunately you are not alone."

"Yeah, the sisterhood is pretty big."

"Sandy?" Abby was sanding in the east archway, hugging herself as if she were cold. Her eyes were huge.

"Abby, what's wrong?" Ducky had hurried over to her and I was close on his heels.

"No, no, not wrong—" she seemed to collect herself when he grasped her shoulders. "I think I found something good," she said very slowly and distinctly.

"Well…good probably means it's not a body," I muttered as we followed her.

"One can hope," he returned.

You could smell the dust and the lemon-scented cleaner a room away. It was going to take a week of sucking the air out the windows to get rid of the grit in the air.

"Okay." She led us to a pile of half-shredded cardboard boxes in the middle of the Crafts section. "We found these in the back, back, back corner. The boys brought them out here, I was afraid they'd totally disintegrate and it's too dark to see if we tried sorting through them in there." I was able to follow her perfectly; that worried me a little. "The writing is pretty trashed, but I think it says 'Caroline Massey estate storage sale.'"

I sneezed viciously several times. "Thank you," I said both for Ducky's handkerchief and 'bless you' on a repeated basis. I wiped my streaming eyes. "Yeah, I remember that. She died; the family was squabbling about dividing her things. It all went into storage, they divvied up the china and furniture, but nobody cared about the books. They forgot to pay the bill for storage—" I sneezed again. "Then they didn't care enough to get the boxes. I got everything in a blind bid." Sneeze. "Those boxes have been packed in here since we took over that section, and were in storage at least another five. We're talking 1990, minimum. They may have been boxed in her house before that. You found something good?"

"Well, there's lots of stuff I have no idea about, but I _think_ this might be worth something." She knelt by one of the boxes and gently pulled a wooden box from it.

The wood was stained and discolored, but it only looked about thirty years old. I couldn't think of any book from that era with a wooden box as part of the package; it must have been added. The wood also showed small signs of termite damage, but none that had worn through to the inside. Abby flipped the latch on the side and swung open the hinged top.

The box had done its job. The embossed foil dust jacket was pristine. Even the Brodart protecting it was perfect. Whatever it was, it was in mint condition so far. I leaned closer. "Holy cow."

"_Les Diners de Gala_," Ducky read.

"More commonly called _The Dali Cookbook_. Worth a couple hundred bucks, especially in this condition. No marks—"

Her face fell. "I peeked inside a little. It's been written in."

Damn. I gently opened the book; it made the soft crackle that told me it had been opened maybe three or four times in its life. "Uh, Abby…?" I could feel the blood drain from my face, and I carefully lowered myself to sit on the floor. "That's not just writing. It's autographed. _Inscribed_." I swallowed, hard. "By Dali." I was suddenly framed, Ducky's face next to my left cheek, Abby's next to my right. I read the looping bright blue writing—probably a felt tip marker. "_Caroline Chérie,_ _Mai vos repas soit aussi doux que le temps que j'ai passé avec vous_—Salvador Dali." I knew I was mangling the pronunciation, but I didn't care.

"May your meals be as sweet as the time I have spent with you," Ducky translated.

"So… this is good?"

"Abby… this is _very_ good. Absolutely no wear, it's perfect… one two-thirds this good went for just under ten grand last year at Christie's. Ten percent?"

"Hunh?"

"You found this, right? You?"

"Yeah…"

"If an employee finds something valued over five hundred bucks, they get a ten percent finder's fee when it sells."

"Oh, I couldn't—I don't work here—"

"You do, today. A lot of people wouldn't have caught this. You, finding this, are going to make me m-o-n-e-y. It's only fair." She was wavering. "It's not going to happen this week, so don't spend the money yet."

"Well…"

I pushed myself off from the floor and dusted off my butt. "Find me a Guttenberg Bible and we can _all_ retire."

She carefully handed me the wooden box, grinning. "You're on."

"Is it really worth that much?" Ducky murmured as we left the room.

I motioned for him to follow me to the office. After stashing the box on the top shelf of the closet, I booted up the computer and popped to my favorite book search site. "Okay… three copies listed."

He looked over my shoulder, repeatedly removing cats as they walked over the keyboard and blocked the view of the screen. "One-seventy-five, two-fifty…"

"Neither is autographed." I pointed to the last listing. "This one is. It's listed for five grand, and the condition is 'good.' Scuffing, soiling, foxing… just the signature. No inscription. Ours is pristine." I grinned. The week was improving.

"Who knows what else is in those boxes?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Just think… If I hadn't gotten pissed off, I wouldn't have decided to rearrange the store. If I hadn't run into you guys last night, you wouldn't be here today. If Abby weren't in the storeroom, I might not have found that for months—and with the condition those boxes are in, that book might have been destroyed."

"Bite your tongue."

"Oof!" Twenty-odd pounds of cat landed on my lap. "There you are. Where have you been hiding? Dr. Mallard, may I introduce Pyewacket?"

Ducky held out a hand; when he had been sniffed and approved, he rubbed Pye's ears and jowls. "Oh, you are a handsome fellow."

"And he knows it." He stomped over me to stand on my arm, stretching up to put his forepaws on Ducky's chest. "Pye!"

"I don't mind," he laughed, scooping up the cat. Say something nice and he'll follow you anywhere. What a slut. (Pyewacket, I mean.) He looked down at the other cats twining about his ankles. "I'm going to have an interesting reception when I get home."

Ruh-roh, Shaggy. "Your mother?" Hope she's not allergic

"No. Her dogs."

I shoved myself back from the desk. "I'll give you a hall pass, tell 'em you were treating the enemy for the Red Cross."

He laughed and followed me out of the office. "They might want me to stay." His easy smile made me think that wasn't such a bad idea.

We pushed cat noses back from the door and slipped back out. Before heading back to where we had been working, I decided to take a turn around the store and see how the rest of the universe was faring.

The children's section was coming along great. To keep the little buggers from scooting out the door, we were moving anything with a reading level of under 12 to the far southwest corner. The emergency-exit-only doors were alarmed to wake the dead, so it would cut down on the little munchkins disappearing behind mom's back. The "children must be with an adult at all times" sign would help, too. Bookcases were being arranged in an enclosed cube of sorts; appropriately enough, a radio was blaring out some sort of alleged music only appreciated by those whose ages disqualified them for voting.

The fiction sections were doing well, too. The Sci-Fi bookcases had moved with the books—decades of quasi-decoupaged book and magazine covers had turned them into our own pop art icons. I'd actually been offered cold, hard cash for them, but it would have been like selling an arm or a leg. Over in Mystery, Evelyn was busy rebuilding a couple of bookcases that had needed help for years but we never had the time to empty them. "I'm going to need more wood tomorrow," she called as I came closer. "I can finish off these two with what I have, but I had four shelves split completely."

I bit back a curse. The joys of owning your own business. "Make a list, I'll hit Home Depot before I come in."

She nodded and upped the volume on her portable television. "Channel 6 is running _The Exorcist_," she grinned. "Starts in a couple of minutes."

Hey, whatever floats your boat. It was the top of the hour 120-second news spot to get you to turn in at ten. Five seconds of weather (clear), five seconds of traffic (amazingly enough, also clear), a snippet of President Bush trying to give a talk somewhere (not so clear), and the stuff that would get people to tune in in a few hours: crime, gore and fear. Attempted rape in Georgetown. Rash of muggings on the Mall. Murder of a Navy officer— I looked at Ducky, and he pursed his lips and nodded his head; yep, this was the case he and Abby had dealt with that morning. "—Footage of the wife of Commander David Sutton being brought in for questioning—"

Oh, my god.

David.

Oh, my _god_.

I didn't realize I was saying it, over and over, until Evelyn grabbed my arm. "Sandy, snap out of it! 'Oh, my god,' _what_?"

"It's David. David. My David. David is dead. David's _dead_. Oh, my god." I was babbling. I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm going to be sick."

At least I had the grace to make it to the office bathroom in time.

Lunch was a lot better going south than it was coming back north. As I sat on the floor thanking my foresightedness in grabbing every freebie bottle of mouthwash when I traveled, my mind was trying to sort through things logically. One: David was dead. Two: His wife was being brought in for questioning. (DC Metro? Or NCIS? Hmm.) Three: His wife had just found out he was cheating on her. Whether or not this was the first time and whether or not she had known about the hypothetical other times was anybody's guess. But she had just found out he was cheating on her… _with me. _

Ah, but then we got to those big ones, four, five and six. My van had obviously been driven the night before. Driven _after_ my tie-one-on at The Salty Dog. Driven someplace where the back panel got muddy. (Pictures of the landscaping being done outside of Blackthorne popped into mind, the mess that I had so carefully avoided during my lunchtime trip. Goody.) Five, David had had been strangled, according to Ducky's comment. What had I been fantasizing about over my strawberry 'ritas? Yeppers. And number six… my purse, dropped by the back door in silent accusation. I had clear memories of hanging it up in the office after shooing Evelyn out the door. No reason to bring it down from the coat rack—other than an ingrained habit of grabbing it before getting in the van.

I rested my forehead against the cool ceramic of the freestanding sink. I couldn't remember a thing between turning on the television around ten… or was it eleven… and when I'd crawled up the evolutionary scale to upright wakefulness. Five a.m.? Six? Something like that. Six, seven, maybe as many as eight hours unaccounted for.

I was sure I hadn't done it. No matter that I had been thinking all sorts of revenge the night before (hellooooo, I had been thinking about _strangling_ him—how much more specific did I need to get?), I was sure I hadn't done it. Pretty sure. Well, I wouldn't have done it normally (hmm, but I _was_ drunk as a skunk in a funk). No, no, I was sure I hadn't done it. Absolutely sure. Pretty sure. Kinda sure.

I groaned. Oh, I was in big, big trouble.

There was a soft tap on the door. "Cassandra?" Hmm, I'd gone from 'Sandy' to the more formal 'Cassandra' with the doctor. There was a lot I could read into that, if I felt like doing the work. "Are you all right?"

"I'll live." More than could be said for… Never mind. I pulled myself up, splashed some water on my face and opened the door. "So." I cut to the final reel. "My married lover was your homicide case this morning."

He winced, whether at my brutal honesty or the awkwardness of the moment I didn't know. "We… shouldn't discuss that, my dear." His eyes looked pained.

'My dear.' Such a gentleman. "So… am I a suspect? Should I call my lawyer?"

He reached out to touch my arm. "Sandy…" Well, that was a good sign. To me, anyway. "I am not an NCIS agent. I'm the medical examiner—"

"So help me, god, if you say 'I'm jus' an ol' country doctor,'" I threatened, doing my best Dr. McCoy imitation, "I'll scream."

He actually laughed. Another good sign. "I won't. I promise." He sobered up. "But if I may make a recommendation… as a friend… come in on your own and talk to Special Agent Gibbs."

"Who? Why?"

"Special Agent Gibbs is in charge of the investigation." Investigation. David was an investigation. A case. A corpse. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the lurch in my stomach. "If you had nothing to do with Commander Sutton's death—"

"_If_—!" I jerked myself away from his touch. It was one thing for me to doubt myself, another for him to. Stellar logic.

"_If_," he repeated firmly, taking my arm again. "Sandy, I wasn't there, I _have_ to say 'if.'" That doused my fire pretty quickly. "If you had nothing to do with his death, it will look better for you to come forward. Be eliminated. Tell them what you know. Special Agent Gibbs is—" he thought for a moment, searching for the right words. "A... very fair man. Professional. And the best at what he does." The words were complimentary, but his tone was a little reserved. He smiled reassuringly. "The only reason a person would have to fear him is if they're guilty."

Oh, god. His eyes were so kind, so supportive. I wanted to pour everything out to him. The van. My purse. The missing hours from last night. But, as he had said, we shouldn't discuss it.

The van, my purse, the ticking clock. Hell, I was a fan of _Law and Order_—convictions had been made with less. Yeah… I was screwed. "So… will he be there tomorrow? Or should I go in on Monday?" His look was plain: the sooner, the better. "I'll, ah, go in first thing tomorrow morning. You want to perform the introductions?" I asked flippantly, trying to hide my pounding heart and skyrocketing blood pressure.

"I'm sure you'll be fine on your own. But I'll give him a call, let him know you'll be there." Another clear look: you _will_ be there, yes?

Yes. I'd be there. "Listen…" I stared at the floor, feeling like a geeky teenager. "I understand… if you and Abby can't… hang out here for a while. Conflict of interest or whatever. But when this is all settled..." I looked up hopefully. I really liked him. And Abby. I was already starting to consider them (dare I say it?) friends.

"You won't be able to keep us away," he promised. "Besides, those young men will fight to see Abigail return."

I managed a smile. "True." He had such a compassionate aura around him; I couldn't help but feel positive about the next day. "Ducky…? Thank you." He smiled and gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. "You said… your patients talk to you?" He nodded slowly. "As pissed as I still am for what David did… he did have some good qualities. I'm glad he has someone like you, uh, 'taking care of him' now."

He patted my cheek and I felt a prick of tears. "I shall listen very, very carefully to what Commander Sutton has to say."

* * *

-2-


	3. Chapter 3: Disbound

**Chapter Three – Disbound**

_**Disbound—**__a book which has been removed from its binding (and the binding is usually no longer present)._

* * *

I am screwed.

Oh, my god, I am _screwed_.

Oh, Buddha, Zeus and Isis, all the gods out there, I am _so_ screwed they could bag me and sell me by the dozen at Home Depot.

Special Agent Gibbs started off like a good ol' boy minus the accent. Casual, friendly—affable, even. He didn't ask a lot of questions… but somehow I offered up a lot of answers. He had these open, baby blue eyes and brows gathered in a faintly quizzical look that made you just want to tell him anything, everything.

'Heh, heh, heh, come into my parlor,' said the spider to the fly.

I was upfront. I told him everything. I told him, told him, told him. I told him about walking in on Commander—and Mrs.—Sutton. I told him about leaving the lunch basket. When asked, I told him what I had brought for lunch right down to the silverware. (Shit! The silverware! Oh, hell, I can probably get replacement pieces.) I told him about going to The Salty Dog. I told him about meeting a couple of NCIS people there; when he asked for names, I was able to answer Abby and Ducky—quickly substituting 'Dr. Mallard'—rapidly enough; it took me a moment to come up with, "Tony… and I think he said Probie?"

"Uh-huh." He looked down at a file folder on his lap.

"And, uh, a couple of people I didn't meet. A young woman—she sort of kept Tony in line?" His mouth quirked. "And a young guy, about the same age. Glasses. Looked like a nice kid."

"Uh-huh." He looked up for a moment. "What happened next?"

I told him… not so much as before. "I… went home. Well, back to the store. That's more home than home is." I laughed nervously. "I, um, I sacked out in the office. Um, turned on the TV to keep me company. Got up, jeez, five o'clock, something like that. Picked up a bunch of boxes—"

"Where?"

"Hunh?"

"Where did you pick up the boxes?"

"Oh. Used boxes. The Dog, back of Print-It-Quick, jeez, anybody that had a decent box for about a ten block radius."

"Mmh. What time was this?"

I sighed. "Started, like I said, five or so. Stopped at Mickey D's—"

"Mickey _who_?"

"Mickey D? McDonald's?" He nodded. "Stopped there for breakfast around six-thirty, maybe seven… hit the Albertson's around eight, I guess. Back to the store, started schlepping stuff around. I heard about David—Commander Sutton—about five in the afternoon. Ducky—Ducky suggested I come in. Maybe I know something about before he died, I don't know—I don't know anything about him dying, besides what the news—"

"Don't you?"

His voice was so casual I almost missed the words. "Don't I what?"

"Don't you know something about the night he died?"

"Um, no—"

"You might want to re-think that answer." He pulled a paper from the file and slid it across the table.

It was a picture. Of me. Not a good picture—pretty grainy, black and white—but good enough to tell the subject. "I don't know where, I mean, yeah, that looks like me—"

The good ol' boy smile was gone. He turned to the side and clicked a remote; a TV screen lit up, showing static footage of the main driveway at Blackthorne. The time and date stamp in the corner showed Friday night, 23:17.

"Commander Sutton was killed between ten p.m. and twelve-thirty a.m."

The timer clicked off seconds. I watched in silence as a van pulled into view. Even before he hit the pause button, I knew what the license plate would read: ISELBKS. And there I was, bright as day (in the middle of the night) in the driver's seat. "I can't believe it," I blurted out. "I have never driven drunk before!"

Agent Gibbs looked at me like I was nuts. Maybe I was. "We're talking about something a little more serious than a DUI, Ms. Talmadge. We're talking about murder."

"I didn't kill him!"

"How do you know? Apparently you don't even remember driving there!"

"I know, I just—I'm sure if I had killed him, I'd remember!"

"You had motive—"

"Like his _wife_ didn't?"

"Opportunity—"

"Uh, _ditto_?"

"And means. A witness has identified the murder weapon as yours—"

"Murder weap—listen, if you even think I own a gun, you're crazy—"

"Nobody said anything about a gun." He slapped a blue-jacketed paper on the desk. "Order compelling a DNA sample and fingerprints." A second folded paper joined the first. "Search warrant, covering your house," a third paper followed, "the store," a fourth smacked down, "and your vehicle."

I fought back the fury. Thanks, David. You screwed up my life while you were alive; you're still doing it while dead. Peachy. "Here." I dug in my pocket and pulled out my key ring. I unhooked four keys and slapped them on the table in unconscious imitation of his movements. "House key. Store key. Door and trunk; ignition." I'm sure my face looked as cold as my voice sounded. "That way you don't have to break down doors or strip the gears in the van having it towed. Oh, I parked in the south lot. You shouldn't have any trouble finding the van." My voice cracked. "You know the license plate." I glanced at the court order and the search warrants; everything looked all right and tight. (I had enough practice looking at the damned things; I had been my brother's study buddy throughout law school. Speaking of which…) "Is it too late to ask to call my lawyer?" Oh, man, he was going to kill me… if I could be so lucky.

"No. Not at all." His face was impassive.

I had to dial three times to get the number right and finally my niece, Sharon—the one who looks like Abby—answered the phone. I sucked in a breath. Abby. Oh, my god, Abby was going to be running my DNA. Abby—and Ducky—could be instrumental in my downfall. I could hear Sharon saying, "Hello? Hello!" in my ear.

"Share, get your dad."

She must have heard the urgency in my voice; there was no sarcastic, "And good morning to _you_, Aunt Cass," before she covered the receiver and delicately bellowed for my brother.

"Hey, Cassie, what's up?"

I all but crumpled. My big brother would make things right. "Ray… I'm kind of in trouble." I gave him the Reader's Digest version of the past forty-eight hours, carefully edited for listening ears.

He swore softly. "Christ on a crutch, Cassandra! Even if you didn't have me in your life as a reminder, you grew up on _Perry Mason_. You should know enough to keep your mouth shut. Now, don't say another word until I get there."

"That may be hard to do."

"What?"

"Keeping my mouth shut. You know, DNA sample and all that jazz."

I could picture him rubbing his forehead in vexation. He specialized in family law and had four kids; vexation is kind of his middle name. "Read the order to me."

I did my auctioneer imitation, reading off the first paragraphs at light speed.

"Who signed it?"

"Looks like… Shapiro. Salazar Shapiro? I think that's what it says."

"Okay, go ahead and give the sample. Sal never does anything halfway. If they let you go—and they should—wait outside the Navy Yard, out on M Street. I'll pick you up there."

I let out a deep breath. "Thanks, Ray. I owe you." He wasn't a criminal attorney, but he could muddle me through this first day and refer me to someone who wouldn't bankrupt me keeping me off death row. I snapped the phone shut and looked at Agent Gibbs. "So. DNA sample?"

He led me down to the bowels of the building—well, almost. There were some street level windows on the tops of the walls, giving the place an almost homey feel. Heavy metal music—or something like it—was blasting from an office. "Abby! Turn that racket down!"

I bit back a smile. Yea. Score one for the Goth baby.

"Gibbs, you know I do my best work with music!" Regardless, she scurried from a large machine into her office and turned the music down infinitesimally. "Now, what can I do for—Sandy!" she squealed and hurried over, clomping on her four inch platform boots.

"DNA sample," Gibbs said bluntly. "Fingerprints."

She halted abruptly before she could collide and hug me. She looked at me in puzzlement, read the court order and her shoulders sagged. "Oh." She silently turned and went to a shelf, picked up a few things and returned. "This won't hurt." Her voice was subdued. She tore open the wrapper on a swab and held it up in front of my face. I obediently opened my mouth; she was very gentle as she ran the pad over the inside of my cheek. "All done." She looked at me apologetically.

I tried to give her an 'I understand' look. "Thanks." I watched her pop the swab into a tube, seal it and initial it. All right, tight and proper. In a weird way, if I were convicted, I wouldn't mind so much if it came from Abby finding a match. It would mean that I really _had_ done the evil deed and just blacked it out. Abby was a pro: she'd either damn me with irrefutable evidence or clear me completely. When she expertly rolled my fingers across the ink and ID card, I thought she was going to break down and cry.

"Abs? Vehicle coming in downstairs."

She nodded silently, handing me a wipe.

I scrubbed viciously at my fingertips. "Be careful. She has a warped clutch plate." I managed a ghost of a smile. "Kind of like her driver." I hugged myself as we left the lab. "So, now what? I can't leave the country; my passport expired last year. 'Don't leave the state?' Am I under arrest? May I go home? Am I allowed to go home? What about the store? We were in the middle of reorganizing things, I'd like to finish—"

"I'll have an agent escort you to your home, or the store, whichever you prefer. We can conduct the search while you're there. It shouldn't take too long."

Hmm. That meant they were looking for something specific. "The store, please, if you don't mind." I stared at the floor as we rode back upstairs, continuing to watch the carpet pass as we walked into cubicle-ville.

"Tony, Ziva—search warrant." He handed a warrant and my house and car keys to the guy who had been not quite hitting on me Friday and the good-looking brunette who had been in his crowd. I got a flicker of recognition from Tony and a soupçon of sympathy thrown in for good measure. "Get her vehicle down to the garage before you leave. It's in the south lot—2002 Chevvy cargo van, license India-Sierra-Echo-Lima-Bravo-Kilo-Sierra. McGee, you're with me. We're escorting Ms. Talmadge back to her store and executing the search warrant there."

There was a collision of "yes, boss" and "on it" with a "give me the keys, I'll get the car, Tony" thrown in. I continued to hug myself and stare at the floor as I followed Gibbs and McGee (I was irrationally grateful to discover his name was _not_ 'Probie') out the building. It was such a short distance to the store, it seemed insane to drive, but hey—I'm sure they had a rule to follow.

At the store, my hand automatically went to my pocket, oh, yeah—no key. Gibbs held up the key I had voluntarily surrendered and handed it to me to open the door. It was a small civility, but one I cherished nonetheless. "Welcome to my world," I said as we crossed the backdoor threshold. Funny, I didn't remember it being that big of a mess when I went home the night before. I guess it was like having friends over for dinner—you don't notice the dust and disorganization of your own home until strangers come inside. "I know you can't tell me what you're looking for—wait a minute, that's on the search warrant." While I fumbled the pages of the warrant, I called Ray's cell. Voice mail. "Ray, I'm back at the store. They're executing the search warrant; they're looking for—computer disks? Files? Program data? What the f—" I cut myself off in time. I snapped the phone shut. "I can save you a lotta time." I led the way to the office. "Computer. Hooked up to the internet." I pointed to a second terminal in the corner of the room. "Networked to my computer but not hooked up to the internet. My bookkeeper uses it. All my programs and crap are on the bookcase behind my desk. I'm really A-R about my disks being where they should be." I snorted faintly. "This isn't because I used my Hoyle game disk at home and here, is it? I'll pay the goddamned license fee!"

The glance Gibbs shot me told me to shut up and knock off the sarcasm—it wasn't appreciated. I meekly led them to the second office, the one Evelyn uses as a retreat, where our online stock is housed and a third computer is devoted strictly to online sales. "Um, I have two computers at home. A PC and a laptop. And could they please not let the cat out? I'd appreciate it."

Still watching me, Gibbs flipped open his cell phone and hit a speed dial. "DiNozzo. Yeah, two acknowledged computers. One PC, one laptop. And DiNozzo—" he looked me in the eye. "Make sure not to let the cat out." He shut his phone. I was feeling far more charitable toward him than I probably should have.

"Uh, Agent Gibbs? Is it okay if I work? We're still moving book stock—just moving things from one place to another, you can follow me around if you want—"

"Won't be necessary. You can go ahead and—" he waved a hand.

"Thanks." It helped to have something to do, so I could ignore the sacking of my life. I made like a colony of worker ants, cramming books in boxes and using the dolly to run them to the appropriate areas. Nothing like hyper kinetic energy to kick it into fifth gear. As I lugged boxes past the office on one trip, I could see McGee trying to stack jewel cases and CD envelopes in a neat pile, to no avail. "Here." I brought in some empty file boxes with lids.

He actually looked grateful. "Thank you, ma'am." Ma'am. Jeez. That's what I get for giving aid and comfort to the enemy: ma'am.

"Just… don't lose anything. I haven't seen "Battle Chess" or "Carmageddon" for sale in years."

He gave me a mildly incredulous look. "_I_ haven't seen anyone with five-and-a-quarter disks in years." Okay, I had actually moved that old stuff to three-and-a-half floppies… and I was making the reluctant change to CDs—I just hadn't gotten around to throwing out the old disks. Shoot me for being a sentimental slob.

"Be glad they aren't eight-inch." He actually goggled at me. Priceless. I headed back to the main room.

The back door opened and Evelyn entered, singing "Y.M.C.A." at the top of her lungs. God love her… she's a great manager, she's a good friend, but she's a lousy singer. Can't carry a tune in a bucket. But I was grateful to see a friendly face.

Make that a startled face. She pulled off her headphones. "Sandy, what are you doing here? Are you parked out front? I didn't see the van—"

"Oh, Ev…" I made a 'follow me' motion and led her to the far end of the store. "Remember yesterday, when we heard about David?" She nodded. "Well, this morning…" I launched into a low-voiced rendition of "Sunday at the Park With George"—NCIS-style. As she listened, her eyes grew wider and her face grew paler. Just as I got to our arrival at the store, Ray joined the party. I gave him a proper introduction to Agents Gibbs and McGee—so they knew he really, truly, honestly was my legal counsel and not a reporter trying to ferret out fresh details—and went back to finish my tale of woe.

Evelyn shook her head, mouth open. "But what are they looking for?" she hissed.

"No clue. It sounds like David was working on some computer program and it's missing. Whoever killed him—in my case, whoever they _think_ killed him—is the most likely suspect for the theft."

"What was he working on?"

"Still clueless." I shrugged. "He always danced around his work, said it was classified." I glanced down the length of the store, even though I couldn't see Gibbs, McGee or even Ray. "If NCIS is involved, I guess it _was_ classified."

Evelyn started pacing around in random circles. "This—this is nuts!" She tore her shoulderbag off and actually threw it against the wall. "No, this is _bullshit_!" she yelled.

"Evvie, Evvie—shh, don't—" I waved my arms in the universal 'calm down and be quiet' movement. No luck. If anything, it made her madder.

"I can't believe—are they crazy? Are they fucking crazy?!"

"Evvie, please!"

Our discussion wasn't lost on the other occupants of the building. Gibbs came out of my office, looking deceptively mild. "Is there a problem?"

"You bet your ass there's a problem!"

"Evelyn," I almost groaned.

"If you think Sandy killed that jackass, you are wrong. Dead wrong."

"Oh? And you know this for a fact?"

"I'm not saying he didn't deserve to get offed, but Sandy is one of the nicest, sweetest people on the planet."

Jeez, Ev, if you're going to lie, at least lie with statistics on your side. A hundred people or more could testify as to what a smartass I am. If anyone were going to be the #1 choice for impulsive killer, it would be me. Or at least somewhere in the top five.

"Even nice people can commit murder under the right circumstances."

"Agent Gibbs," my brother protested. "That's a prejudicial—"

"We aren't in front of a jury, counselor."

Behind them, Agent McGee was silently moving back and forth from my office to the back door, taking computer towers, boxes of computer parts and ephemera, even the keyboards.

"Um, when do I get my computers back?" I tried for a polite tone of voice.

"Soon as we're finished with them."

"We'll need an itemized list of anything removed from the store as well as from Cassandra's home," my brother said. He was using the firm voice that gets slacker parents to start catching up on overdue support payments.

"We'll have a list made at NCIS—"

"No," my brother countered, pleasant but firm, "before the property leaves the premises. My associate is waiting for your agents at Cassandra's home with similar instructions." Since he has a one-man office, by 'associate' he probably meant my sister-in-law, Barb. I almost felt sorry for Tony and his partner. Almost. Ray smiled politely. "It's a matter of business liability. I wouldn't want NCIS to be responsible for any missing records or files for a business with a high volume of cash transactions."

Gibbs stared at my brother, eyes hooded. "Point taken." Still staring at Ray, he flipped open his phone and punched a speed dial number without looking at the pad. I was envious; I'd've dialed Sri Lanka if I had tried that. "DiNozzo. You at the site?" The response was too faint to hear. "Yeah, us too. Make sure to make a _detailed_ search. And write a _detailed_ receipt for anything you take out of there. Every disk, every keyboard, every doohickey-thing-a-ma-bobble. Everything. Very, _very_ detailed." My heart sank; I had visions of my house being turned ass over teakettle in their enthusiastic search for nothing.

I sighed. "It can't be much worse than what airline security did to me," I muttered. Gibbs heard me and gave me a curious look. "Flew out to L.A. last spring. Got my luggage to the hotel, both bags had stickers saying they had been opened and inspected. Apparently my makeup bag looked suspicious, because every single thing I had was covered in talcum and face powder. Every. Single. Thing. I'm sitting there, midnight, rinsing clothes in the shower and ironing them until dawn. I wanted to put a curse on that baggage handler."

Agent McGee had stopped in the middle of going into my office to listen to the tale. "Wow. That's crummy." At a sharp look from Gibbs, he started. "Detailed inventory. On it, boss." He ducked into the second office.

Gibbs actually looked sympathetic. "_That_ is why I only bring a carry-on."

"They got your face powder all over your BVDs?" Oh, man. I need that 7-second delay button installed on my mouth. I really do.

To my amazement, he laughed. "No—but my favorite green shirt disappeared between here and Colorado."

He seemed almost human. I thought back to what Ducky had said—god, was it only 24 hours ago? Not even. Gibbs was the best at what he does. And fair. I could only hope so.

While they continued to strip the offices, I went about my business robotically. The rest of the crew straggled in; to the inevitable 'what's going on,' I told them I'd explain later.

Geoff and Alan had only one question between them: "Where's Abby?" Yeah, she had made an impression on them for sure.

It actually hurt. Not having Abby—or Ducky—hurt. "She, ah, she had to be at work today. But she'll be back later this week. Just… keep doing what she had planned out." I forced a smile. "See if you can surprise her by getting the room done. Make her proud." I hoped my promise of Abby's return wasn't just whistling in the wind.

I shook my head as I boxed the Auto Repair and Maintenance section; the store was 15,000 square feet and a million books, easy. If you figured each _book_ could be a hiding place, each book_case_ could be a hiding place, hell; under the ratty carpet could be a hiding place—

Oh, _shut_ _up_. Don't even think that. If they were content to strip search the offices and stop there, I sure as hell wasn't going to suggest more places to look. Besides, the sales floor was an awfully public place to hide things.

Apparently, that was Gibbs' train of thought. He came out of Evelyn's quasi-office (hopefully he missed the eyeball daggers she was sending; any second I expected him to arrest her for throwing voodoo curses at a Federal agent) and strode over to the main sales desk. He started methodically going through papers, receipt books, trade credit files—everything. "Is this the only non-public area outside of the offices?"

Yep, great minds, yadda yadda. "For the most part. There's a table in the last room, we use it during the holidays and our anniversary sale, when we need more hands. But between times, it's folded up and put behind bookcases out of the way. Um, and the employee break room."

"We already went through the break room. Is that table set up now?"

"No, our anniversary is in June, and we don't start seeing holiday sales pick up before November."

Despite my answer, he walked to the 1st Street end of the store. (Brave man. Evelyn was in that room, still loaded for bear.) Satisfied, he returned to the central room. "It's gonna be a while for Agent McGee to finish writing down every… last… item." I managed not to smile maliciously; serves you right! "Why don't we go into your office and… talk?" He held up a hand before I could say anything. "Your lawyer is waiting in there."

Ray would keep me from spilling more guts than I already had, even if he had to tackle me to do it. I grabbed a Coke from the fridge before joining them in my office. The bookcase behind my desk was half-empty, the desks stripped of anything remotely related to the computer… I had to give them credit; it didn't look like a pack of wolves had run rampant through the room. What they weren't taking had been neatly put back, even if it wasn't exactly where it had started out.

They weren't taking a lot of stuff, compared to the rest of the store, but it still felt empty.

I plopped into the chair used once a week by our bookkeeper, Miyoko. (She was going to have a fit on Thursday. Nothing like hand entering ledger notes to make your day.) I looked at Agent Gibbs expectantly; this was his show—lead off, sunshine.

"Could you give me some background about your relationship with Commander Sutton?"

Before I could answer, Ray spoke up. "Could you be more specific with your question, Agent Gibbs?"

The flicked eyebrow said it all: like so many people, Gibbs hates lawyers. Great. "When did you meet Commander Sutton? Under what circumstances?"

Ray nodded minutely and I gave them a short version of our meeting in Anacostia Park and lunch the subsequent week. Gibbs continued to take notes and ask questions; Ray continued to request rephrasing or alternate questions about every third one. Slowly we made our way through the past six months: Tuesday and Thursday dinners at my house; out of the blue calls from him to go to lunch in the middle of the week. Occasional weekends together, usually going out somewhere. (I glossed over the occasional weekends spent at my place, and the even less frequent Tuesday dinners that trickled into Wednesday breakfasts.) "I have a feeling his secretary knew what was going on. I mean, I wasn't hanging all over him like a teenager, but I was obviously not Navy issue and didn't have a business reason for being there, so…" I shrugged.

"Did she ever question you about your relationship with the Commander?"

"No," I said politely but firmly. "She did sometimes… give me a hinky look."

His glance shot up. "Hinky?"

"Yeah, you know—weird, off-kilter, something's-not-quite-right?"

He shook his head faintly. "Am I the _only_ person who doesn't like to use that word?" he muttered almost inaudibly. He sighed. "Okay. Why was she giving you this—_hinky_—look?"

"Speculation."

"No, no, it's okay." Ray gave me his classic 'who went to law school?' look. "In retrospect, I think it was because she knew he was married and was playing guardian at the gate. At the time I thought maybe she had a thing for him herself and thought I was hunting on her turf."

Gibbs nodded and made a couple of notes. He opened his mouth for another question, but was interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. He held it at arms' length, squinting slightly, then his brow furrowed. Not a good sign. He held up his hand in a 'hold on' gesture and rose from the desk. As he walked out of the office, he said, "Dr. Mallard?"

I caught my breath. Ducky?

"Anything you want to tell me?" Ray murmured.

"Hunh?"

"Well, the way you—" he sucked in his breath dramatically. "I figure you know something."

"Dr. Mallard. He's the medical examiner at NCIS."

Gibbs returned in short order. "How did you get into the building?"

"You have no proof my client entered the building."

"I don't even remember driving there. I sure as heck don't remember entering the building."

I'm sure Ray wanted to kick my ankle like he did when we were kids and my chatter was about to accidentally rat him out. "As stated, you have no proof my client entered the building."

"There's no record of you signing in with the guard." Ray gave Gibbs a slightly smug smile. "Do you know of any other ways in where you—or someone else—could enter, unseen?"

Hmm. 'You—or someone else.' Reasonable doubt, anyone? Ray nodded imperceptibly. "Well—there's a side door, south side of the building. It's supposed to be one of the emergency exits, but the alarm kept misfiring so they disconnected it." Gibbs rolled his eyes ever so slightly. "Yeah, well… that's the door a lot of the employees on that side of the building use when they want to run outside for a smoke. It sometimes doesn't latch all the way, and the guards don't always check it. It's a shortcut up to… David's office," I finished in a mumble. I had used it a couple of times for late night dinners at his office. He had left the door ajar for me or slipped downstairs to meet me when I called from the street. On those nights, I parked on the street. Of course, on _those_ nights I had been stone cold sober.

Gibbs opened his phone and pushed a few buttons. "Do you recognize this?" He turned the phone around and showed us the screen.

"Could you be more specific?" Ray countered quickly.

"Have you seen this scarf before?"

Ray gave me the silent sibling communication: go ahead.

I forced myself to not hyperventilate. "Yes."

"Do you own this scarf?"

Let's split hairs. "No."

He looked surprised, but quickly regrouped. "Let me rephrase that. _At any time…_ have you owned this scarf?"

Ha. Gotcha. My brain had finally kicked into gear. "Actually… I don't know, come to think of it. I'd really have to see it in person. At one time I _did_ own a scarf in that pattern, but if _this_ scarf is the scarf I _formerly_ owned, I cannot state for certain." I took a ladylike sip of my Coke. All that study buddy time was coming in handy—not to mention all those seasons of _Law and Order. _

Gibbs nodded slowly. "Would you be willing to accompany us back to NCIS to make a positive identification?"

Might as well get it over with. "As soon as you're done cataloguing the computer equipment you're taking—sure."

He barely repressed a smile and walked from the room. Ray followed behind and closed the door then came back and sat close. "Tell me everything about that scarf," he whispered.

"It's mine. It _was_ mine, I mean. It's part of a suit—" I sat back. Oh, crap. It was part of my favorite blue suit. The Chanel suit that David's wife had recognized—the one I helped Ducky track down for his mother. _Ducky had recognized the scarf._

Oh, crap was right.

Ray was looking at me expectantly. "I, uh, I gave it to David. I was wearing it a few months ago. We were out to dinner—it was one of those Italian restaurants with the drippy candles. The scarf caught fire—nobody was hurt, but one edge of it was ruined. I was going to throw it out, David wanted to keep it as a reminder of the evening."

"So you haven't seen it since then?"

"Why would I?"

"Cass—"

"No, no, I haven't seen it. Sorry."

"So if it's been cleaned since then, your DNA won't be on it."

Holy cow. David had been strangled… with a scarf. That was the murder weapon Agent Gibbs was talking about me owning. "Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, even if it hasn't been cleaned, that was months ago."

"If you were wearing it then there might still—"

There was a knock at the door. "Later," I whispered. "Come in!"

Agent Gibbs entered bearing a sheaf of papers. "Your list."

I gave it a cursory glance; Agent McGee was one organized fellow, I'll say that. Page one started with "CD" followed by a program name or face title and the number of disks involved. An arrow from "CD" ran to the bottom of the page; after he had catalogued the known disks, he had listed the unknown: "untitled, blue face" an arrow running from "untitled" to the bottom of the page, and the different subcategories of "unknown" delineated on the following lines. Very methodical. Very neat. If the printing listing my ancient 5-1/4 disks was a little shaky at times—well, who could blame him? "Thank you. This looks complete from what I know I have. Had." I stuck it in an empty file folder. "Shall we head to NCIS now?"

"I can drive over with Cassandra, save you the trouble of another trip." Plus it would give him a chance to get some answers without possibility of being overheard. Smart boy, my brother.

I ducked into the front room where Evelyn was putting excessive force into breaking apart the bookcases that were too damaged to salvage. Knowing I was going to spend god knows how many hours at NCIS, I had made a pre-dawn trip to Home Depot for stacks of wood and nails and other metal do-dads. I might have triple the time invested in the business, but Ev could run circles around me when it comes to maximizing available space and designing weird and workable storage solutions. I gave her a quick rundown of what had gone on out of her hearing and our plans to go back to NCIS.

"No." She swung the hammer, utterly destroying the half-broken shelf in her path. I had a feeling she was picturing Agent Gibbs as a target, and was glad I'd grabbed a pair of safety goggles before coming closer.

"No, what?"

"No. Don't go. I don't trust them, they need a guilty party and they sure as shit don't want it to be one of their own. They're going to be looking to pin this on a civvie." Smash. Whack. Crunch.

"Ev, they aren't going to railroad an innocent person." One could hope. "That's hard to do nowadays, what with DNA evidence—plus the computer files that I _know_ I didn't steal—I mean, the best they can do is prove I've been to David's office in the past. They are _not_ going to be able to prove I was there Friday night; they are _not_ going to be able to prove that I killed him—because I _wasn't_ and I _didn't_. Case closed."

She shot me a quick glance and I could see the fear there—fear and something else. I took an involuntary step back.

Oh, god.

_She thought I was guilty._

* * *

-3-


	4. Chapter 4: Shaken

**Chapter Four – Shaken**

_**Shaken**__—the text block is loose in its binding; no longer tight, but not detached._

* * *

After more than an hour of twiddling our thumbs upstairs (I don't know if Gibbs had to do paperwork first before taking us downstairs or if this was his way of punishing us for the pages of receipts for the computer crap—I was leaning toward the latter) we were back in Abby's technical universe. The silence was unnerving. It apparently even bothered Gibbs. "No music, Abs?"

She shrugged. "Don't feel like it." Her voice was flat.

The surprise on his face was telling: that was not the norm in this room. But he said nothing further on that train of thought. "We need a positive identification of evidence removed from the scene of the Sutton murder."

_Sutton murder. _It sent a chill down my spine and I fought rising nausea. I stared at the floor, forcing my expression to remain impassive. I heard more than saw them don latex gloves, remove a plastic bag from a box, sign the back of the bag then snip it open. Abby slid the contents into a white tray and held out a box of gloves to me. It didn't take a genius to do the math: gloves now would show that any DNA traces had to have been left prior to that moment. Duh.

I pulled on the gloves, flashing back to high school biology and innocent frogs. Ugh. I carefully poked at the mass of fabric, turning it over to one of the short edges.

Yep. There it was, the ragged blackened edge that warred with the almost Mondrian-style print on the silk. David dunking it into our pitcher of ice water had saved the whole thing from going up in flames (possibly even the whole table—and us). "Yes, I believe this _was_ my scarf." Ray and I had discussed strategy on the way over: if it was mine (I was pretty sure it would be), lay it out a, b, c. "It was three months ago, possibly four. I could check my credit card receipts and let you know for sure. We were having dinner at Borelli's, I think the name was."

"Borelli's? Oh, man, they make a kick-ass tiramisu—" Abby quailed under Gibbs' look. "Never mind."

I sent her a mental smooch. "They have those fat wine jugs wrapped in straw with dripping candles. It was a little warm; I had the scarf around my neck, I took it off, it got caught in the scarf ring I had securing it. When I fumbled to catch the ring, one end of the scarf got too close to the candle and caught fire. David grabbed it—the scarf, I mean—and stuck the end into a pitcher of water. I was going to throw it away, but he wanted to keep it as a souvenir of our adventure. That's the last time I saw it." I stepped back. "It's part of a set. Dress, skirt, jacket, blouse and scarf." My mouth twisted. "1993 Chanel. A classic. Dr. Mallard's mother had him buy the same outfit for her."

Agent Gibbs cocked his head. "Are you suggesting… _Mrs. Mallard_… killed Commander Sutton?" There was just enough of a glint to his eye that I knew he was yanking my chain.

I caught Abby's eye roll as she quickly turned aside, managing not to laugh. "No, of course not. She's _much_ too much a lady." Somebody bit back a snicker; I think it was Agent McGee busy sorting my computer items on the other side of the room. "I was just pointing out that I am _not_ the only person to own this particular style of scarf—and while this scarf certainly _appears_ to be the one I last saw almost four months ago, it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone took a scarf of the identical print and burned it in a similar manner to make it appear to be my scarf. My former scarf," I quickly amended.

Gibbs looked from me to my brother and back. No subtitles needed: _you have GOT to be kidding me. _

The door behind us whooshed open. "CompUSA, at your service, boss!" A stainless steel cart came through, pushed by Tony; there were four boxes on the cart. I was impressed—I didn't think I had that much computer crap at my house. He handed my house key and a file to Gibbs as he passed, pushing the cart toward the hapless Agent McGee. If he was their computer geek—and his conversation at the store made it seem he was—he was in for a long week.

Gibbs scrawled his name on a couple of papers and silently handed me a set. The printing was almost as neat as McGee's, but the organizational layout was just a bit inferior. He was just one of those uber-organized people and his colleagues weren't. I snuck a look at the last page—it was written by Tony's partner. Figures. His wouldn't have been so neat, probably. "Thanks," I said, folding the papers and tucking them in my bag. I took the key he silently held out.

"And your cat did not escape." The voice behind me made me jump; damn, she was stealthy. "As a matter of fact, he supervised our work."

I could picture it. He's named Underfoot for a reason. "I'll bet," I murmured. From Tony's dour look, he had been the recipient of Mr. Foot's "what'cha doin', what'cha doin?" interference while Ziva stayed out of range doing paperwork. (I wanted to call her Zira—watched _Planet of the Apes_ too much, I guess.)

"Tony, Ziva—" The two agents joined Gibbs on the other side of the room; Abby risked a glance behind his back, giving me an encouraging smile. I remembered her enthusiastic good-bye hug from the day before; I could have used one right then. Agent Gibbs was conversing in a low tone with the two agents; I caught "dust" and "side door." Good. He _had _paid attention to what I had been saying. (He'd've been a fool not to, in my opinion.)

A loud beeping made all of us turn toward the corner. "Officer David, escort our visitors from the building, please." Ray and I exchanged looks. "If you'd rather wait upstairs for further questions," Gibbs continued, "you're certainly welcome. Might be a while. Maybe not even today."

Less the dust beneath my feet. "You have my numbers and, hey, I'm right down the road."

She couldn't get us out of there fast enough—from my point of view, anyway. Ray waited until we had driven beyond the guard shack to say anything. At the light, he shook his head and rubbed his temples. "Only you," he muttered.

"Beg pardon?"

"Only. You. Only _you_, dear sister, could get involved in something like this." I gave him an affronted look. "And where the hell did you come up with that asinine idea—someone takes an identical scarf—what, almost fifteen years old? Then they burn it just like your scarf?" He looked at the interior roof of the car in appeal.

"You said I grew up on _Perry Mason_," I said with a tight smile.

"Yeah, well, here's a news flash: _this is not television. This_ is NCIS. Naval. CRIMINAL. Investigative. Services. Did you miss that word 'criminal?' I'll spell it out for you."

"Don't bother. I spell better than you do." We drove the next few blocks in silence.

Back at the store, we sat in the car for a moment. "Listen, kid—"

"You're only six years older than I am." I managed a small smile.

"I'm still the senior partner in the family." He let out a deep sigh. "I'll stick with you on this, Cass."

"Ray, you don't do criminal cases—"

"Some of them should be, in my opinion. No, I mean while it's just the questioning stage. I can help you deal with the q-and-a part; if it looks like they're narrowing their focus on you and have you as number one on the hit parade, I'll call in Ross."

"Whoa," I whooshed. "Ray, how much money do you think this place makes? I can't afford Ross Clarke. I can't even afford to take him out to dinner."

He smiled. "He owes me one."

"Jeez, what did you do, give him a kidney?"

"Pretty close," he murmured. "No more questions, no more answers. Enough. End. Finis. This will get taken care of. Don't worry."

"Ray…?"

"Mmh?"

"I didn't do it." I stared at my hands, folded in my lap. "I know I was totally blotto, but—I didn't do it. I'm sure I didn't."

"I know, kiddo." He gave me a lopsided grin. "If you had, you wouldn't have left any evidence behind. Want me to check you place, make sure they left it in one piece?"

"Oh, Ray, would you?"

"Sure. I'll give that monster some Pounce, too. I'm sure having strangers turn his house upside down has his tail in a twist. You got a ride home?"

"My taxes support the Metro, may as well get my money's worth."

I slipped in the back door, ignored by everyone. Sort of. I got a flick of a glance, and then quickly averted eyes. A half a step toward me—then a turn the other direction. The music was loud; the conversations subdued. It's a little hard to be perky when your boss is involved in a murder investigation—as the number one suspect. At the very least, you start to wonder how much longer you'll have a paycheck. I made a slow stroll through the building—they had accomplished a lot in the past couple of hours. I hated to think what kind of pep talk Evelyn had given them.

Evelyn. Hmm, no Evelyn. She had finished breaking down the unsalvageable bookcases and started on the new ones—several were finished, even. I smiled; it was like having Bob Vila on staff. "Where's Ev?"

"Um…" Valerie glanced from me to the floor. "Home Depot. Wood stain and sealer."

"Oh." I knew I had forgotten something. At least I remembered the wood and all the hardware. "Okay, well—I'll be in the office."

She looked almost grateful. "Sure."

I forced myself to continue my leisurely sweep around the place, ending back at my office. I shut the door behind me and walked over to my half-empty desk. Can't call any vendors; it's Sunday. Can't check our online sales; all the computers are gone. Can't do any bookkeeping tasks for Miyo; same problem. I sat down behind my desk, feeling like Laura Holt when Remington Steele disappeared: now what? I did the only sensible thing I could think of.

I put my head down on my arms and cried.

*****

Evelyn was doing a good job of hiding her 'my boss is an axe murderess' feelings. She all but dragged me out of the office, shoved a paintbrush in my hand and said, "Make magic happen." For the better part of two hours we neatly slopped light stain on the six cases she had smacked together in my absence, then sat back for a bit to make sure the Qwik-Dri product lived up to its name before sealing it for eternity. I called in a pizza order and grabbed a couple of drinks on my way back to our corner.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the bottle in my hand. "For me?" she almost squealed. She clapped her hands little a little girl and I laughed. It was an insanely, wonderfully normal moment.

"Yeah, I ordered a six-pack, figuring you'd do something to deserve it by the end of the year." I looked around the store. "This more than qualifies."

She gently popped the cap on the homemade ale with the colorful label reading "Bard's Brew" and took a deep sniff. "Nectar. If the gods are so lucky." A few years ago she had discovered the drink at a Renaissance Faire on the west coast. Regulations being what they are, they couldn't legally ship alcohol—let's just say it helps to have slightly devious friends in Virginia. (Think Romulan Ale on _Star Trek_. Low friends in high places.) "I'm going to ration these."

I shook my head. "Glad you like it." I'd tried a sip. Once. Ugh. It brought back memories of sneaking beer in high school. Double ugh. Give me a drink with lots of fruit keeping the alcohol company any day; beer is just plain rank in my opinion, even the expensive stuff.

She glanced at my choice of beverage through slit eyes, then quirked an eyebrow. "Coke."

"Yep."

"No cooler?"

"Nope."

"That was short. Last time…" she trailed off.

I took a long gulp of the Coke. "Last time… Nikko didn't turn up dead. That'll sober you up, my friend."

"Yeah." Sobered her up, too. She wriggled on the floor, changing from cross-legged to legs bent out and tucked against her thighs. It made me hurt just to watch, but she's been belly dancing since high school; contorting her body into bizarre positions is second nature. "Sandy… what happened?"

"At NCIS?" I stalled.

"That—and Friday. I mean, if you don't want to tell me, I understand," she said in a rush. "I don't know what Ray has told you, if you have to avoid talking to your friends, or—"

"No, no, he hasn't said anything. And anything I tell you would he hearsay, so you're safe. We're safe." I stared at my soda can, my thumb rubbing the curve of the first 'C.' "Okay. Last Friday. You… kicked me out of my own store—" I could hear her smile. "Deservedly so, I might add." I shook my head. "Sorry for being such a queen bitch from hell."

"You have a long way to go for that title."

"Thanks." Deep breath; exhale. "Went down to The Salty Dog."

"Figures. Strawberry margarita?" Yeah… she knows me _very_ well.

"Three." She whistled. "Extra large." A longer whistle. "Doubles."

She shuddered delicately. "My god, I'm amazed you could walk the next morning."

"I kinda couldn't." My first few steps after crawling up from the floor had been less than graceful. "You said—you said I called you Friday night."

"Yeah. You were so pissed off. I mean, not that I blame you. What a louse—uh, sorry."

"No. He was a louse." He also frequently volunteered to feed my cat when I was out of town and took better care of my houseplants than I did. He had his good points—fidelity was just not one of them. "So I called you…"

"Yeah, you were pretty out of it."

I gritted my teeth. "What did I say, Ev? I need to know."

She shifted back to cross-legged, her bottle of Bard's cradled loosely in her hands. "You said… you should have known from the beginning," she said, staring at her interlaced fingers in her lap. "That he was too good to be true. That he deserved whatever his wife gave him, and then some. That you—" her voice faltered. "That you should go over and give him a piece of your mind, teach him a lesson. I kept telling you he wasn't worth it, you should just walk away and forget him. I was really worried that you'd do it, it scared me to death that you might get behind the wheel—"

"Apparently, I did." I threw my head back and rubbed my eyes tiredly, freshening them with the condensation from the Coke can. I looked her square in the eye. "I don't remember a damned thing. But they have me on film entering Blackthorne."

Evelyn turned dead white. "That's impossible. You weren't there, I'm sure you—"

"I was. But, Ev—I'm sure I didn't kill him! I mean, I couldn't—could I?"

"Of course not," she said staunchly. I smiled; she would have found me innocent if I'd been standing next to a decapitation, bloody machete in one hand, head in the other. She might think, deep in her heart of hearts, that I was guilty as sin (her eyes had given her away a couple of times already), but she would never say it out loud.

"Well, they have a picture of me driving in the main entrance at about quarter past eleven. The rent-a-cop doesn't have me logged in the front door, so I guess I used the side entrance—"

"God bless the smokers," she murmured. She and I had had a good laugh over the lax security at a think tank with government connections. Hopefully that flaw would keep me out of prison.

"They're going to dust the door for prints—at least, I think they are."

Her head snapped up. "A zillion people use that door. How will that help?"

"Don't ask me. I'm no detective. I don't even play one on TV. I can't even say for sure if it would be good or bad if they find my prints on the door—or good or bad if they _don't_."

Ev chewed at her bottom lip. "They have you on camera entering the driveway… but you don't remember actually going in there."

"Nope."

"Thank, Cassandra!" she said, more sharply than I can ever remember her speaking. "You need to remember!"

"I've tried." I thought it would be a childish whine, but my voice came out flat. "I've tried. I remember dozing off, waking up because I was having gawdawful nightmares. I turned on the TV—"

"I could hear it in the background when you called."

I nodded. "Next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor over in the Theatre section." I sighed. "My purse was by the back door, and when I drove down to The Dog I saw there was dirt on the van. And the van was unlocked. So I knew I had gone somewhere during the night." I shook my head slowly, staring at the ugly pattern in the carpet; some year I'll replace it, just not today. "I don't… remember… anything."

"Maybe he—he pushed you, you were defending yourself—"

"Evelyn, he was strangled!" I snapped. "With _my_ scarf!"

She looked sick. "Oh, my god."

_Listen to me!_

I jerked my head up. Evelyn opened her mouth to say something, and I held up my hand. "Shh."

_Listen to me!_

_Why should I? It's all lies!_

_Cassie, wait!_

My hands shook. I could hear the Coke splashing in the can; I set it down. "I saw him. He was alive. He was alive when I got there." I screwed my eyes shut; I couldn't see anything, but I could hear vague snippets of conversations—mostly yelled at fever pitch.

_I loved you. I trusted you. You lied to me!_

_Don't go—don't leave me, not now—_

David's voice, quaking. Was he… crying? No, not crying. Almost—in pain? My hands flew up to cover my face. Oh, god—had I hurt him, struck out at him, and he was begging me not to leave him to die? What kind of evil monster had I become? "Oh, god, Ev. I—I think I might have done it." I hugged myself to stop the violent shaking; it didn't work. "I don't remember, but… I'm beginning to think… I think… maybe… I did it."

She set her bottle aside, scrambling up to her knees. She leaned forward and took hold of my arms in a death grip. "Listen to me," she said, her voice barely audible but with the strength of coiled steel. "You will not repeat what you just said to anyone. Whatever you remember is so soaked with alcohol, it probably never happened. You said you had nightmares—that's all this is. A nightmare. _Do you understand me,_ _Cassandra_?"

I nodded even though I was now sure that I really was guilty. _Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. _With a start, I realized I was keeping cadence with the ancient grandfather's clock in the corner.

"Just a nightmare," she repeated. When I nodded again, she stood up. "Okay. You have a business to run and I need you to help me with these bookcases. And the pizza guy is here. We forget what has been said—and move forward. Right?" I nodded; my head was on autopilot. "Right." She gave my shoulders a squeeze and turned back to the bookcase, testing the stain for dryness.

I slowly rose and went to the front door, pulling my wallet out of my pocket as I walked. I felt like a sleepwalker—which certainly fit with what Evelyn had been saying so insistently. A nightmare. That's all it was: a nightmare. I shuddered; a nightmare, yes—one from which I didn't think I'd ever awaken.

**********

Monday and Tuesday were quiet days—from an investigative standpoint. I didn't call over to NCIS (why ask for trouble?); Ray said he'd keep on top of things—more accurately, Barb would. Seems she hadn't been joking when she called herself Ray's assistant—she had made good a longtime threat, she really _had_ gone back to school after the kids got out of high school and was now a paralegal, and starting law school the coming spring. (Rock on, Barbara—nothing like keeping it all in the family.) She and I had been thick as thieves since she started dating Ray, so she took my case as a personal challenge. She was on the phone chanting "discovery" at the legal department and getting updates on the investigation—all with sweet accents of honey and magnolia that would charm any man with working gonads. So the beginning of the week had nothing but promises of DNA results by Wednesday.

I was able to concentrate on the store, spurred on by the high customer volume. My paranoid mind thought people were there just because of the crime, but my name hadn't been mentioned in the press, so I really was just being paranoid. From the titles, the sales were probably students and parents of students stocking up for English classes: Steinbeck, Hemingway, lots of Shakespeare, every copy of "Catcher in the Rye" (I always snatch any copy I see, it gets assigned every year) and any poetry and short story anthology in reading condition. School cutbacks suck for students and teachers, but they're a godsend for booksellers.

Wednesday was a mixed bag of news. On the business side, sales continued to be steady, including people who were doing early holiday shopping. The general economy wasn't so hot, gas was on the rise, but book people are a breed unto themselves. (One of our best-selling t-shirts is the Erasmus quote, "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." There's more truth than poetry to that one.)

On the investigation front—hmm. The DNA on the scarf came back showing that it was popular. David's DNA (of course, it was used to strangle him—it would be odd if it weren't there); mine (the good news on that was that the epithelials were old and faded—they had been there a while, with fresh DNA from other sources overlaid, lending credence to my story that I hadn't seen the thing in months) and a third source: unknown female, _not_ his wife. The prevailing theory was that he was cheating on his mistress with yet another woman. Man, my taste in men _really_ sucks.

"They dusted the side door you told them about," Barb reported. "Hot place. Most prints were old and smudged, unusable. But they retrieved two palm prints with clear fingerprints." She mimed putting a hand flat on the door while pulling at the handle with the other hand; I was treating her to lunch at C'est Bonne as a thank you. She made it a small gesture to avoid colliding with close-passing servers. It made sense; sometimes the door would stick, even when ajar. "One matched the sample you gave them."

Oh, crap.

"The other… did not."

Oh… un-crap?

"The second print appears to have been laid _over_ yours."

"So—you're saying I entered the side door—" she gave me a semi-disgusted look that reminded me of Ray. "And someone else came in after me? Do they know who?"

"Not yet. They're running the prints through all the known databases, they've already eliminated any Blackthorne employees." Barb concentrated on her dessert for a moment. "Cass…"

"Yeah?"

"We have _got_ to get you hooked up with a nice man."

I grinned. Hey, if she figured I was eligible for her matchmaking skills, she probably didn't think I was going to prison. Unless, of course, she was planning ahead for conjugal visits.

*****

Thursday everything hit the fan… and splattered.

About an hour after we opened, I found myself on a freestanding ladder (_not_ my favorite place, by a long shot), trying to screw a bracket into the wall. Both hands were occupied with the job, leaving nothing for stability. I was alternating prayers to the universe that I not fall on the floor and curses to the same universe over sheetrock that took the word 'rock' too literally. It was like pounding sewing pins into granite. I could have sent one of the kids up for the job, but I figured if anything went wrong, I wouldn't file a worker's comp claim against myself. So when the phone rang, I was not in any position to answer it, physically or mentally.

"Sandy? It's your brother." Evelyn stood next to the ladder.

"Can't—talk—now—" the drill slipped and I let forth with a string of unprintable words, ending in "shazbat!"

"Yeah, Mork from Ork, you'd better take this call."

I set the drill on the paint stand and climbed carefully down to ground level. I took a composing breath and managed a polite, "What's up?" Ray was doing me a huge favor; I wasn't going to get pissy with him.

"I'm coming over to pick you up. They want to see you at NCIS. Immediately."

Ever heard of that phrase 'my blood ran cold?' It's true. I started to shake and the room grayed out. "Why?" I managed to croak.

"They call the shots, Cassie. Agent Gibbs isn't the most talkative, if you haven't noticed."

"Yeah, uh… yeah. I'll meet you out back."

"Fifteen minutes. I'm already on the road."

I clicked the "off" button on the handset and handed it over to Evelyn. Oooooh, I needed to change clothes; I had just drenched my shirt in a gallon of sweat.

"What's up?" she asked, _sotto voce_.

"Ray's coming to pick me up," I replied in the same tone. "NCIS called. They want me there—now."

Her look was anguished. "Sandy, I—"

"Don't say it, kid. I'm not goin' to the big house." I gave her a lopsided grin. More courage than I actually felt. "Listen, could you—" I gestured to the hanging bracket. "I want to change clothes."

"Sure, sure."

I hurried off to the office, glad as always that I keep several outfits in the closet. I carefully didn't look back at Evelyn; I didn't want to see the look in her eyes that she tried so hard to hide, the look that said she would defend me to the end… even though, deep down, she thought I was guilty.

Normally the drive-on inspection seemed to take forever; this time was lickity-split. It seemed like only seconds and we were at the security desk, Officer David signing us in. We followed her to the squad room and were given the barest acknowledgement by her fearless leader.

"Officer David, escort our guests—" (Guests?) "—Upstairs to the conference room, please." Hey, it beats interrogation. Of course, maybe that was what they called interrogation when they were trying to be polite.

It wasn't. Granted, there was an armed guard waiting outside while Officer David (why not agent, I couldn't help but wonder) eased the general discomfort by going for drinks while Ray and I sat at the table that could entertain eighteen people with ease. Too bad they weren't going to be alcoholic drinks—I was really yearning for one of The Dog's specials. Sigh. No, no, no. No more alcohol, no matter how good it tastes. Clouds your judgment, makes you kill ex-lovers... I shook my head to evict that line of thought.

"Don't say anything. Please? Should I gag you?" Ray looked like he had a migraine coming on.

I propped my chin on cupped hands. "You were a lot more fun at Woodstock," I said, trying to lighten the mood, just as the door opened.

It was Officer David with coffee for Ray and a Coke for me. A second paper cup, undoubtedly hers, was a mystery. "You went to Woodstock?" she said conversationally, removing the drinks from the cardboard tray and handing them to us. She added a pile of sugar and creamer packets next to Ray's coffee. Not only could she keep her partner in line at a bar and write a decent evidence receipt, she was a stellar hostess. Nice.

I grinned and popped the top on the can. "Yeah, my big brother convinced our parents it would be perfectly safe for his little sister to go along with him."

"I have seen the movie. It was…" she searched for the right word. "Interesting."

"It was a blast," I corrected. "They say if you can remember being at Woodstock, you probably weren't there. Well, I was only thirteen, so I was probably the only one there who wasn't stoned—so I _do_ remember being there." Okay, there was a contact high or two along the way. Let's just call it an educational weekend and leave it at that. "In Ray's defense, we didn't think it was going to be as crazy as it was."

"At least we got there early and got to sleep in the car every so often," he muttered. He couldn't complain that this would ruin his reputation—he had pictures from that weekend on the same wall with his diplomas. It didn't matter what administration was in office—proof that you attended Woodstock gave you a certain cachet that nothing else could.

"You are lucky to have a 'big brother' like that." She flashed a brief smile over the top of her cup—tea, it looked like.

"Yeah. I am." Ray had always been a great brother—and here he was, covering my ass again. "Ray—jeez, Ray, are you okay?"

His face was beet red; his eyes squeezed shut. "Dear god," he croaked. His coffee sat in front of him, surface quivering slightly. "I've heard of Navy coffee, but…" he shuddered.

"Actually, here it is often _Marine_ coffee. That is worse. I am sorry." Her look was a mixture of amusement and sympathy—about 30/70. "I can get you tea—or water?"

"No, no—" he tore open every packet of sugar and creamer and added them, stirring gingerly—the color barely changed. He took another sip and barely repressed a cringe. "My god, that stuff'll kill you."

"I will get you some water." Instead of leaving, she passed the request to the guard and came back to sit at the table.

"May I ask you a question?" She looked a little surprised, but nodded nonetheless. "If it's too nosy, I understand… but… why are you 'officer' David instead of 'agent' David? And—where were you born? You have a very pretty accent," I said quickly.

She smiled. "Thank you. And—it is not a secret. I am a liaison officer with NCIS, not an agent per se. And I was born in Tel Aviv."

Tel Aviv. Israel. Holy cow, this was probably the Mossad officer Evelyn had mentioned. I was suddenly _very_ glad I'd been polite to her all along. "I've never been to Israel. It looks beautiful."

"It is. Very. It is also quite dangerous."

Yeah, well D.C. isn't a garden of safety either. Just ask David Sutton. The door opening interrupted our little tête-à-tête. Instead of the guard, Agent Gibbs walked in and silently set a bottle of water in front of my brother, whose coloring had dropped to a dark rose. "Take it you didn't like the coffee?" he asked casually.

"It's a bit… strong," Ray admitted, taking a grateful slug from the blue bottle.

Gibbs shrugged. "I've heard that from a couple of people. I thought it was a little on the weak side, today, went out for something stronger." Oh, please, let's not get into a testosterone pissing contest over who can drink the caffeinated paint stripper and still stand.

"I leave it in your capable hands, Agent Gibbs." Ray had never been one for stupid macho challenges, thank god.

Gibbs leaned back in his chair and rocked slowly, staring at my can of Coke, lost in thought. "I thought you drank decaf," he said, forehead slightly creased.

"Heck, no. I don't drink unleaded stuff."

He smiled. "I know what'cha mean. No, it was just…" he pulled out a spiral notepad from his shirt pocket, popped reading glasses on his nose and flipped a few pages. "Mmh. Yep. 'Asian chicken slaw. Broccoli pasta salad. Decaf raspberry green tea. Cream puffs.'" He looked up at me expectantly.

The picnic lunch that never happened. Well, not for me, anyway. "Um, yeah. Well, one of them was decaf. David is really careful about caffeine." I let out a breath. "Was. Heck, I even brought vanilla cream puffs because chocolate has a little bit of caffeine."

"Did you ever discuss this?" He resumed his slow rocking. "Did he tell you why he was so careful about caffeine?"

I glanced at Ray, who shrugged. "No," I said slowly. "He never said anything… I just got the idea that it made him too hyper. I never thought about it—half the kids at the store don't drink caffeine, the other half live on it. He was pretty vigilant about his cholesterol, too; I figured he was just being healthy. Sort of. I mean, he drank gallons of coffee every day—he bothered to have his own stash of Kona, but it was decaf. With those prices, why bother?""

"Mmh." The wheels turned for a minute. "How much had you seen him the past two, three weeks?" Cross-traffic turn with no signal, thank you.

Another nod from my legal counsel. "Hang on." I dug through my purse for my day runner. (First time my goddamned PDA battery died and I lost _everything_, I went back to the old fashioned kind.) "Okay… back a month just to make it organized."

Agent Gibbs smiled faintly and inclined his head. "That's fine." Officer David unobtrusively pulled out a PDA and stylus.

"Okay… David was out of town that first weekend. I drove up to New Hampshire Wednesday. I started working my way back down through Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, yadda, yadda, yadda, hitting estate sales and other booksellers. Got back Tuesday night—no, Wednesday morning, technically. Spent the next couple of days unpacking and sorting stuff, didn't see David." There was a chirp from a phone—his. I waited politely while he read a text message and replied, then continued when he nodded. "We were supposed to go to the Smithsonian on Saturday; he called Friday night, said he had to fly to California, last minute thing. I figured what the heck, karma, told him no problem. I hit Maryland—didn't have time on the weekend before—and Virginia, jeez, you can't drive two blocks without hitting a good sale in Virginia."

"Do you have proof of these trips?"

I couldn't stop the derisive snort. "Honey, businesses like mine attract heavy IRS attention. I am the queen of documentation." _Honey_. It was probably not to best choice, but he didn't seem to mind. On the other hand, I could feel Ray 's silent groan. That does it; I'm getting that delay button installed.

Gibbs nodded. "Good. Continue, please."

As I went through the days, Officer David making tiny notations as I spoke, I realized how little I had seen David—not because of him, because of me. I had spent a lot of time running around the last weeks before winter would make it almost impossible to travel safely. I'd been out of town more than I had been home. "Wow." Including the ill-fated lunch, I had seen David a total of five times in four weeks. No wonder I had been so desperate to see him that Friday; I probably had a tingle of _he's pulling away_ in the back of my head.

"Five times." Gibbs had been keeping tally as well.

I made a face. "I don't know that you can really count Friday. That was a really short lunch." And let's _not_ count that night, shall we?

"Who else knew about his… dislike of caffeine?"

"Speculation." Ray was back to a more normal coloring.

"I have no idea," I said, lifting one shoulder slightly. "His wife, I would suppose." I contained my sarcasm well, I thought.

Gibbs nodded. "True." He flipped a few more pages. "You really didn't know he had a wife in California? Didn't suspect?"

I pondered the question for a long moment. "Not consciously. I probably had a suspicion in the back of my head, but… I just…" I shrugged, feeling exceptionally stupid.

"Yeah… nobody wants to face something like that." His face was impassive but there was a hint of recognition in his voice.

"Agent Gibbs—may I ask why the questions regarding caffeine? Commander Sutton was strangled, yes?" When Gibbs hesitated, my brother smiled. "Discovery," he said. The autopsy report would be made available to my legal counsel.

"Commander Sutton was strangled… _after_ he died."

Come again?

Apparently Ray and I had a pair of baffled faces because Gibbs reiterated. "Commander Sutton was dead when someone strangled him."

"How?" At least Ray had a working voice; I was still in shock.

"An extremely high concentration of—"

"Caffeine," I breathed. Why else would he have been asking so many questions?

He nodded. There was a very soft knock; he caught Officer David's eye and flicked a glance toward the door. She rose and opened it, waving someone inside. For a moment, I lost the ability to breathe. Ducky, looking kinda gorgeous in a white lab coat. Was he there to save my ass or bury it?

"You know Dr. Mallard." There was a flash of a smirk; then it was gone.

Sharp white lab coat, barely tousled hair, quiet strength… Oh, yeah. Definitely gorgeous.

No, no, _no_. Don't think like that. You don't want another romance; this was way too soon! He gave me a smile, and his eyes sparkled a little behind his glasses.

Okay… maybe it wasn't too soon.

Ray looked at Agent Gibbs expectantly. "Medical Examiner?"

Another brief nod. "I thought it best for him to explain the medical particulars."

Ducky slid into an empty chair across from us and opened a file folder. "You knew that Commander Sutton had a sensitivity to caffeine, yes?"

I nodded. "We were out to dinner once, he was served regular coffee by accident, by the end of the second cup he was a wreck."

"Mmmh, yes, I can imagine... Do you remember your chemistry classes from school?" He looked at me expectantly; Gibbs was studying his PDA and god_damn _that man was smirking like crazy. I wanted to give him a 'smack upside the head' as my Aunt Livvie would have said.

"Vaguely..."

"Do you remember the term 'half life?'"

Yeah, it defines my social life. No, that wasn't the answer he was looking for. "I remember it, just don't ask me to write an essay."

"Half life is the time it takes for a substance—a radioactive isotope, a drug—in this case, the caffeine—to lose half of its pharmacological, physiological, or radiological activity. The half-life of caffeine—the time required for the body to eliminate one-half of the total amount of caffeine—can vary. It's dependent upon age, liver function, medications and so on—and genetics."

"I'm with you so far." Barely. Science had never been my best subject.

"Now, genetically speaking, some people metabolize coffee more quickly than others." He shot Agent Gibbs a sharp look; his response was to take a long, slow drink from his paper cup, staring over the rim the whole time. "Others metabolize it much more slowly, to the point that ingestion of caffeine can be dangerous—even life-threatening. It has to do with a genetic defect, the cytochrome P450 gene."

"And David—Commander Sutton—had this defective gene?"

"I don't have details on his genetic markers—yet—but I would not be surprised if he does. His sensitivity was such that he wore a Medic-Alert medallion warning not to administer drugs with caffeine. Now, the average cup of coffee contains between a hundred and a hundred and seventy-five milligrams of caffeine." I couldn't help but whistle, and Ray looked at his discarded coffee apprehensively. Ducky caught the look. "From downstairs?" Ray nodded. "At least double." He pointed to my soda. "What is listed on the can for caffeine milligrams?"

It took some hunting; the print was tiny. "Thirty-four."

"And even though it is called decaffeinated, decaffeinated coffee still can contain ten or fifteen milligrams of caffeine. Of course, if you are accustomed to thirty milligrams over two cups and, instead, receive two to three hundred and fifty milligrams..."

"Wow. No wonder he was flipping out that time." I actually felt sorry for him.

"Precisely. Now, with most adults, caffeine half life is achieved at three to five hours—some shorter, some longer—"

"But if would be longer for David?"

He almost beamed at me; I was passing the class. "Correct. Now, the lethal dose of caffeine is roughly 150 to 200 milligrams per kilo of body weight—for a man his size, 182 pounds, 82.73 kilograms... between twelve and a half to sixteen and a half _grams_. Envision drinking over one hundred cups of coffee within the space of a very few hours."

It made me ill just to think of it.

"As I said, that is a clinical, lethal overdose. An acute overdose _can_ start as low as 300 milligrams—in Commander Sutton's case, with his heightened sensitivity, 300 to 400 would have probably put him in the emergency room."

"Wow."

"When we ran a tox screen and looked at the caffeine levels—" he glanced at the sheet for verification, "the level of caffeine in his blood was over two full grams—2071 milligrams." He shook his head. "He must have been in agony that last hour."

"But—but how? He was so careful—"

"We analyzed the contents of his stomach—"

Ugh.

"And the level of caffeine was astronomical. An entire bottle of Caffawake is 40 tablets, that's about 8000 milligrams—for the _entire _bottle," he repeated.

Whoa. That's the stuff that makes No-Doz look like baby aspirin. "But—again—how?"

"Coffee," he said simply.

"That makes no sense. I mean, he buys a special Kona blend from this little place here in town, they have a private plantation, duh, on the island of Kona—but it's decaf, it costs a freaking fortune—" I had bought him a canister for his birthday, and almost fainted at the price.

"Caffeine, itself, is extremely bitter," Ducky continued. "It's not something you could, say, sprinkle on someone's salad. It would have to be disguised, hidden in something already strong or acidic."

I thought of the pots of coffee David went through; he practically lived on the stuff. Light dawned. "You're saying someone poisoned David with—caffeine? In his _coffee_?"

He nodded. "The unabsorbed caffeine was over eight hundred milligrams—essentially two Caffawake pills, double the normal dose for a twelve hour period. From the volume of the contents, we estimate that dose was in one cup of coffee." There was something karmic, almost poetic (albeit twisted), about stripping the caffeine from your coffee, only to have someone shove it back in and kill you with it. "But—the coffee in the canister at his office does not show any excess of caffeine; it's regular, decaffeinated, overpriced Kona blend coffee." I bit back a smile at his description. "From our analysis, it was definitely in coffee, but from what source we have yet to discover. The autopsy showed escalating systemic damage that had taken place over approximately two to three weeks prior to his death—"

Two to three weeks? I hadn't been here. _I hadn't been here. _Oh, man, in my entire life I have _never_ been so happy that I spent money.

"—and, by my estimate, the last, fatal overdose was administered…" he consulted his file. "Over approximately a six hour period… about two hours before his death. An overdose of caffeine will raise the heart rate, raise body temperature… I have revised the time of death to 23:45, plus or minus fifteen minutes."

I searched my memory. Sunday Gibbs had said David died between ten and twelve-thirty; this narrowed the spread appreciably. Unfortunately, the security camera showed me arriving a half-hour before the revised time of death—plenty of time to stagger upstairs and strangle him. _But_… he hadn't been strangled. He had been poisoned—and it had been administered over a six-hour period, ending about two hours before he died. Call it 3:30 to 9:30. I was at the store until almost half past five, with a dozen or more witnesses. Circle K would have me on the security camera buying cigarettes. I had been at The Salty Dog from about six until almost nine—plenty of witnesses, including some NCIS agents. Including Ducky, for that matter. Ev was my witness until a little after 9:00. Even calling it a half hour, that wasn't enough time to drive to his office and force over two thousand milligrams of caffeine—about five cups of over-caffeinated-decaf—down his throat.

_I was in the clear. _

My relief must have shown on my face because Officer David actually smiled at me. "I knew I didn't do it," I couldn't help but say. Ray finally gave in to temptation and gave me a kick on the ankle—just a light one, though.

"But if it wasn't in the _coffee_—" Ray suddenly sat up, making all of us glance his way. He fingered the sugar and creamer wrappers. "Cass... how did he take his coffee?"

I nodded toward his leavings. "Like you. Doctored to death. Uh, sorry. I mean—lots of sugar. Lots of creamer. Non-dairy creamer," I clarified.

He held up a crumpled wrapper. "Packets?"

I shook my head slowly and turned to Gibbs. "No—he has an antique coffee set in his office, with two sterling sugar bowls: one for sugar, one for powdered creamer. French Vanilla."

He was already on the phone. "DiNozzo. McGee is still tearing into the computers—take Lee, go back to Blackthorne. Yeah, in the Commander's office—anything to do with his coffee setup. Sugar. Creamer. Anything." He thought for a moment. "Bring in his secretary for questioning." Without waiting for an answer, he snapped his phone shut.

"Not that I don't like having the spotlight taken off me—" another ankle kick, a little sharper this time. I gritted my teeth for a second. "But why Mimi?"

"She's his secretary. Past five years. She'd have to know about the caffeine allergy—and I don't care if this is the twenty-first century, a lot of secretaries _still _make coffee for the boss."

True enough.

His phone trilled at him and he looked at it in irritation. "What is it, McGee?" Man, he has lousy phone manners.

I paid little attention to his "uh-huhs," "mmmhs" and the occasional "how come?" I concentrated more on my new mantra: _I'm in the clear. I'm in the clear. _I took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Across the table I could see a small smile on Ducky's face. I risked a smile of my own in return, and got a very slow, deliberate blink of both eyes. I'm not sure what we were saying to each other—but we were sure saying something.

"Fine. Right." He shut the phone again and stood up. Almost as an afterthought, he turned to Ray and me. "Stay. Be right back." He was gone before anyone could say anything.

I turned back toward Ducky, my mouth still hanging open for my unspoken reply. "Agent Gibbs is rather... brusque at times," he said diplomatically.

"Stay. Be right back. Arf," I muttered. Oops. Probably should have kept that to myself.

Ziva actually laughed. "We have resisted the temptation of wearing dog collars with name tags on them."

"Abby was willing," Ducky added. I remembered her outfit and grinned. Yeah, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

Again a cell phone interrupted us. "David." A moment of silence. "I will ask. Ms. Talmadge?" I realized I had been staring at the smiling face across from me and blushed slightly. "Your computer at home—do you have a roommate who uses it?"

"I don't have a roommate, period."

"A friend or colleague who borrows your computer?"

"No, nobody—" I stopped myself. "No…" I said slowly. "David borrowed it several times. He said he was having trouble with his internet connection at home, just wanted to check his personal e-mail, message board sites, things like that."

"Did Commander Sutton—" she dropped her gaze for a moment, then looked back up. "Did he have a key to your apartment?"

I was vaguely embarrassed to answer, but cast it aside. What was Ray going to do—tell our parents? "Yes." Actually, I was more embarrassed for Ducky to hear the admission.

With a satisfied smile, she turned back to her phone. "Yes—and yes." She listened for almost a full minute, glancing at her PDA. "The dates coincide with her absences." Another long pause. "Excellent, McGee." The phone snapped shut.

"If I ask… will you tell?"

"Commander Sutton was part of a team working on a highly classified project. I cannot give you details—but the files had been transferred using your computer."

"Impossible," I blurted out. Okay, maybe not impossible, but stupid at the very least.

"They were sent from his office system to an email account which he accessed at your home."

"If he was stealing the program, why not just download it at the office?" Even _I _knew the extra step was risky and I am far from the office geek.

"Lack of access. His computer has no flippy drive—flippy?" she repeated at my questioning look.

"Floppy?"

"Yes. Floppy. His computer had a 'read only' CD." She looked at me for confirmation—I don't know if it was to confirm that she had said it properly or if I understood the concept. Either way, she continued. "It could not burn a CD. It could not accept a jump—? Jump drive. He could not save data. He could access the project files; he could send e-mails. He could not send attached files. And his email was limited in the amount of information that could be sent, and went through a scanning system to check for blocks of data."

"Okay, he couldn't download files at work and take them out of the building. He couldn't send them as an attachment. He got them out how?"

She smiled and went over to a whiteboard. After thinking for a long moment, she wrote: _The roads of justice are not hard or rains shall erode same. _

Ray and I exchanged glances. "Okay, I'm lost," I admitted.

"The roads of justice…" Ray muttered. "It doesn't even make sense."

Ducky was staring at the board, smiling. Either he knew how her mind worked, or had heard her muttering under her breath as she wrote the sentence, but it looked like he knew the answer.

Officer David cocked her head slightly. "I could have done better with more time—or another language," she admitted. She turned to the board, eraser in hand.

"Wait a sec, wait a sec—" Ray jumped up and stood next to her. "The… roads… of… jus…" he read slowly. A grin spread over his face. "Got it." He held out his hand and she placed the eraser in it. He erased the "he" of "the," the "oads" of "roads"—

"T-R-O—" I rattled off the first letters of all the words before he had a chance to finish erasing. "Trojan horses. Trojan… viruses?"

She shook her head. "Trojan horse. Something hidden inside something else. A code. Sometimes a word in a sentence. Sometimes first letter of each sentence. Completely innocuous emails sent to a dozen different accounts—all accessed by Commander Sutton… on your computer. The history shows he copied the emails directly to a disk—slowly, over several months. But the last month—"

"Don't tell me. Let me guess," I said bitterly. "The whole time I was gone, every time I was gone, he'd go over to my place and access that day's worth of treason."

She nodded. "He spent more time there than he did at work."

"At least he left the place clean," I tried to joke. "Clean—why didn't he clean things off the computer? How did you find them?"

"He did 'clean them off.' But there were new emails he had not been able to retrieve, and the old data… let us say that we are very good at what we do."

"Agent McGee?"

"Agent McGee."

"Glad he uses his powers for good." I shook my head. "So… the person stealing from David was… David?" She nodded. "But if he was stealing from Blackthorne, then who killed him?"

"That remains to be—" she was interrupted by the door opening and Agent Gibbs returning.

"Hope you don't mind if we strip the classified data from your computer before we return it," he said wryly.

I held up my hands. "Noooooo problem. That was the PC, right?" He nodded. "It had to be, I had the laptop with me when I was gone. I mostly use that clunker for games. I hate to lose my high scores, but if you want, you're welcome to strip it and reformat the hard drive if it will make you feel better."

He actually smiled. "We'll probably take you up on that offer." His phone beeped; he pulled it out and looked at the screen. "Why did I even bother coming back up here?" he asked no one in particular, opening it up. "Yeah, Abs?" He look of irritation cleared, then a mask went up. "Right." He locked eyes with me.

Uh-oh. That was not a good look. Not by a long shot. I exchanged a slightly nervous look with my unpaid legal representative, then cast at glance Ducky's way. He was giving me what I interpreted as an encouraging look, sort of a, 'Don't worry, things will be fine' nudge. Boy, I hoped he was right.

"Send the feed up to Conference D." He sat down, rubbing his chin reflectively. Silence. Long silence. Just when I was ready to scream, he said, "We ran the prints from the side door."

I nodded. Barbara had told me that much the other day.

"One we identified as yours. There was a second, clear print that was on top of your handprint."

"So—they were there after I was."

"Apparently."

"Do you know who it is?"

"Actually… yes. We've identified the print from a shoplifting conviction several years ago. And feed from the traffic camera shows a vehicle registered to this person half a block behind you at the same time you were pulling into the parking lot. Footage from several blocks back shows this vehicle definitely following you."

"Someone was setting me up?" I was so shocked I couldn't get angry. Yet. "Who? His wife?"

He stared at me. "Teresa Campbell."

I riffled through my mental Rolodex and shook my head. "Don't know a Teresa Campbell. I know about twenty Campbells… no Teresa I can think of."

He nodded to Officer David, who rose and turned on a screen on the far wall. After a moment, the blue screen flicked to an image of a D.C. license.

I heard two slight intakes of breath—Ray and Ducky—and an "Oh!" from Ray bumping heads with a "Well!" from Ducky.

I was a little less polite. "Holy shit." I stared at the picture and focused on the middle name of the new suspect: Teresa _Evelyn_ Campbell. Evelyn. My manager—and, I thought, friend—for more than ten years.

It wasn't my guilt I had seen in her eyes.

It was hers.

* * *

-4-


	5. Chapter 5: Issue

**Chapter Five – Issue**

_**Issue**__—a change, textual or otherwise, made after the book has been published. (e.g.: The first issue of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court has an "s"-like ornament between "The" and "King" on page 59.)_

* * *

We stayed in the conference room while Agents Gibbs and McGee went over to the store to "ask" Evelyn to come in for a little q-and-a session. He had actually said I was free to go—but I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I was staying to the bitter end. Thinking that Evelyn had killed David was marginally crazier than thinking I had killed him. (At least _I_ had a motive.) She couldn't have, _wouldn't_ have set me up to take the rap for a murder she committed.

I stared at the picture on the wall. Teresa. _Teresa_. My god, it had been so long since I'd seen her application, I had totally forgotten that she preferred to use her middle name. I didn't think, "Oh, yeah, that's her _middle_ name," when I called out her name, I just yelled and hoped she'd come running.

The wee, small voices that drive you crazy at 2 a.m. were running rampant in my head. If she didn't kill David, why was there a print on the door that matched hers in the system? (She had a charge for shoplifting? That was harder to believe than a murder accusation.) Why was her car spotted near David's—apparently following me?

"I still can't believe this."

"Her fingerprints place her at the scene—" Officer David started.

"It's not that." I stared at the picture on the screen and saw a stranger. "I can believe she was at the scene…"

"_No charge. So, you get much sleep?" _

"_Yeah, I think so." _

"_Well, you were pretty upset when you called me—"_

"_I called you? When?" _

"_Ten, quarter after, something like that. You were… you were really upset about David." _

"_What did I say?" _

"_You didn't really say much. You kind of lost the thread of the conversation a lot. Then you said you were going back to sleep." _

Even before the damning picture from the security tape I was sure I had driven to Blackthorne Friday night. Evelyn had followed me over—why? Wanting to see if I had the guts to actually do it? To try and stop me? (To try and _help_ me? Yikes.) "I just can't believe she killed David."

But… she had known about his caffeine sensitivity. I had mentioned it a couple of times. And while I was out junketing about from Canada down and D.C. west, inadvertently establishing a nifty alibi, she was back here running the show. I couldn't see how she could have been dosing David with caffeine for the past three weeks. (Oh, sure I could… if David was cheating on his wife with me, what was to stop him from cheating on me with Evelyn? I know she generally preferred women, but of the few guys I'd seen her involved with over the years, David would have fit right in the group.) As for Friday night, I had been at The Salty Dog for almost three hours—where had Evelyn been? Sure, she had been at the store when I got back at nine—but it was only fifteen minutes or so each way to David's office, call it an hour including time to go up to his office—

I put my head down on folded arms.

"Cassandra?"

"Are you ill, Ms. Talmadge?"

"Cass?"

Damn straight I was ill. I was sick—sick at heart. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't be. "I mean, if it was because of those files, it sure wouldn't be Evelyn—_I_ didn't know what he did at the company, she certainly wouldn't have had any idea. This can't be true," I mumbled.

"That remains to be discovered." Her phone rang again. "David." She listened in silence for a moment. "Yes, sir." She shut her phone and clicked a remote, turning off the TV screen. "Agent Gibbs has returned with Ms. Campbell." When I raised my head, I realized tears were leaking from my eyes. Funny, I thought they had been stinging because they were drying out, not the opposite. I rubbed my eyes as though they were tired, trying to disguise the tears.

"Can I be there with her? I mean, may I?"

She shook her head. "But Agent Gibbs has suggested that you be in the observation room." She opened the door, gesturing with a tip of a head that we should leave the room. Ducky came with us—unasked, but certainly not unwanted. He managed a brief squeeze to my shoulder as we walked; funny, it made me want to cry all the more. We followed her down a short rabbit warren of halls and entered a small, dark room. A technician sat in a corner monitoring several machines; a large window took up most of one wall.

"One way mirrored glass," Officer David said.

Ray and I both nodded; it was the most likely thing looking into an interrogation—pardon me, interview—room.

Over the speaker we heard the rattle of a doorknob; looking up, I saw the door open and Evelyn enter, followed by Agent Gibbs. She accepted his offer of a bottle of water and sat silently. She looked utterly calm—if you ignored her nervous picking at the plastic label on the bottle. "Is Sandy okay?"

I was a little surprised that I was the first question on her mind. But then I realized that Gibbs had probably not told her I had solid alibis around the clock and was using that information to his advantage. "She's fine."

"Listen—she did _not_ kill that cretin. He was a lying, cheating sack of—okay, I'm not condoning murder, but even if he didn't deserve to be killed, she sure as hell didn't deserve to be treated like that. He was a louse."

He shrugged minutely. "Not here to debate that."

"She wasn't even there. She went down to the local bar for a drink or two, she came back to the store—she was in no shape to drive, she went right to sleep. She was out cold until the next morning."

I tried not to goggle. Okay, maybe mine was the sin of omission—I hadn't given Gibbs the story of driving to David's office and back because I didn't remember it, and, yeah, once I started to remember snippets I still didn't tell him... because he hadn't exactly asked again. But neither had I told him of my late night call to Evelyn that I couldn't remember… but that she did. Mine was omission, but hers was flat-out lying. I wanted to knock on the glass and tell her to shut up; wiser thoughts prevailed.

"She was?" Gibbs didn't sound incredulous, merely interested.

She was neatly ignoring the security tape—or operating under the theory that if I had not told her about it, it didn't exist and was pretending that I hadn't told her every detail of my Sunday interview with Gibbs. I wondered if she really understood what hearsay meant. "She was. She didn't get up until a couple of hours before I got there, and she was crazy busy. So I know she didn't do it."

"Hmm." Gibbs turned on the TV; I recognized the security tape of Blackthorne. Shot down in flames. "That's very interesting. Oh, see the date stamp in the corner, there?" Evelyn looked from him to the screen. "Last Friday night. Smack in the window of the time of death." My van appeared in the scene and he hit the pause button. "And… what do we have here." He made a show of peering at the image. "License plate… I… Sell… Books. I. S. E. L. B. K. S." He gave her a measured look; she stared at the mirror. At me, even though I was hidden.

"So…" he continued. "So it seems Ms. Talmadge _was _at Blackthorne that evening. You were… inaccurate… in your recollection. I can't help but wonder why that was." He clicked the remote; an image of 17th and Connecticut popped into place. "A few minutes earlier, there we see Ms. Talmadge's van driving by… now…" the van made the not quite 45 degree angle corner; I was driving amazingly well for someone in an alcoholic fog. _I will never, ever again have more than one drink in an evening, I swear. _I actually crossed my heart. "And now…" He paused the stream. "Why, Ms. Campbell. LADY EVY?" I know that battered white Saturn wagon as well as I know my own car. No license plate necessary.

Lady Evelyn. Ev was a die-hard Renaissance Faire girl. I teased her about it every season. I hoped I'd get the chance to do so one more time.

Evelyn continued to stare straight ahead.

He clicked the remote; it changed to another view. "We next see Connecticut and M Northwest—Ms. Talmadge's van, followed by your wagon." Click. "18th and Massachusetts. Van… wagon…" I could see her jaw tighten as she carefully moved her hands to her lap to keep them from completely shredding the label. "And the camera at the corner… well, my. Look here." He pointed to a pale blob on the street near Blackthorne. "You get good parking at that hour." He set down the remote and returned to the table. Seconds ticked away… then a minute. Two. Just when I was ready to screech from impatience, he said softly, "Wanna tell me what happened?"

Boy, that was as far from good cop/bad cop as you could get. Of course, since he was by himself that would be _just_ good cop or _just_ bad cop. But I wasn't expecting him to be quite so… casual. The silence stretched out.

I wasn't expecting her to say anything, either. I was surprised to hear a quiet, "Okay."

Another eon passed. "Go ahead."

She actually opened the bottle and took a swig. "Where do you want me to start?" she asked dully.

"From… noon. When Ms. Talmadge returned to the store."

Almost robotically she told of my return, that I was upset—that she got minimal information out of me then chased me down the way. After I had left, she had stayed until closing—starting with eight other employees, then four, then two, then one, finally closing the shop at nine with nobody else there. A steady stream of customers until closing. I walked up just as she was leaving. She left, locking the door behind her. A little more than an hour later, she received a phone call from me. I flinched. "The next day, she didn't remember calling me. She said she was going to go see David, have it out with him. I was afraid she might really go, I was afraid she'd have an accident. So I drove back. I saw her drive past on the way to David's office, so I followed her there. I was just worried that she might have an accident, or he might hurt her. She was… pretty drunk."

_Never, never, ever again,_ I reiterated.

Another drink of water.

"I saw her go in. I followed her, but she knew where she was going... I didn't. I could hear a door shut in the stairwell. I could see the guard through the window on the door, he was at the main desk... I couldn't risk looking at the lobby directory. So I went floor by floor." She swallowed hard; she was fighting tears and finally lost. It was the first time I had ever seen her cry and it scared me to death. I leaned against the glass, straining to hear her voice over the tinny speaker. "I finally found the right floor. I could—I could hear Sandy and David—she was yelling, he was—he was upset, but he wasn't yelling, he was, he was more like pleading, he sounded—sick, almost. Like he was in pain. I figured—" she dropped her gaze to the table. "Maybe... he really did love her. And he was regretting what he'd done."

_Listen to me!_

_Why should I? It's all lies!_

_Cassie, wait!_

"He was in pain," I said dully. "He was dying. I could have saved him."

_I loved you. I trusted you. You lied to me!_

_Don't go—don't leave me, not now—_

I could hear his voice echoing in my mind. "He... fell..." I said hesitantly. I could feel a gentle hand on my back; I had a feeling it was Ducky.

"I heard him... fall. Sandy—Sandy didn't hurt him, I'm sure she didn't." Evelyn was trembling, her voice breaking around her sobs. I could see David falling, almost in slow motion.

"What happened next?" Gibbs voice was very soft.

"She was—she was so upset. He hurt her so badly. She was yelling at him—"

_You bastard! How could you! How many more women are there? Your lab partner? Your secretary? How fucking trite! Sleeping with your secretary! You are, aren't you? Answer me, dammit!_

Silence. Damning silence.

"He wasn't answering, I don't—I thought—"

David: slumped on the floor, the stunned look on his face. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see Evelyn—not wanting to see David. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass. "He fell... he... died." I shook my head, my forehead rocking against the glass. "I could have—"

"Sandy. _Cassandra_. Listen to me." Definitely Ducky. His hand stroked my back, slowly, lightly. "There is nothing you could have done. An hour before? Two? Maybe. But right then, when you were there—there is nothing that you could have done. _Nothing_. He died instantly." It was going to take a while for me to believe him.

"And?" Gibbs prompted.

"Sandy... left. I wanted to follow her, but—but I wanted to see what..." she trailed off, shaking her head. Gibbs sat and stared at her. Silent. Stoic. After forever, she whispered, "He was dead. I thought..."

He nodded fractionally. "What did you do?" He almost sounded tired.

She swallowed hard. "I—there was a scarf. It was kind of—half out of—" she gestured ineffectually. "In a drawer. I thought it was his wife's..."

I caught my breath. No, oh, no…

"I was afraid Sandy would get caught... I just thought it would mis—misdirect the police, I didn't mean to—" she burst into tears and I shivered. "I didn't mean to kill him!" she almost wailed. "I thought he was dead!"

Gibbs allowed her to weep; I cursed him for being a heartless bastard. Finally he said, "He was."

Evelyn gasped, choking, trying to stop crying. "He—he was? He really _was_ dead?"

"The man you strangled—"

Her hands flew up to cover her face.

"Was already dead. He'd been poisoned."

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

Her words had no effect on him—but they did on me. I spun around and found myself face to face with my comforter. "You knew it was mine," I blurted out.

He looked confused.

"The scarf. You knew it was mine, it's the same one your mother has—"

After a moment, his face cleared. "Oh, Cassandra—my mother must have lost her scarf a decade ago. And—I have no eye for women's fashion," he said almost apologetically.

"Sunday—you, you didn't call Agent Gibbs at the store? Tell him it was my scarf?"

"Sunday?" He frowned. "Oh... Sunday. No, no—I called to tell him that Commander Sutton hadn't died from strangulation. He had suffered a sudden myocardial infarction. His heart stopped," he clarified. I stared into his eyes and remembered Friday night so long ago, the gentle concern for a virtual stranger I'd seen there. I saw it again, only more so.

"There was... nothing..."

He shook his head. "Nothing you could have done." I'd asked him once if he was a psychic and he denied it. But without a word from me he knew I needed a hug at that point and willingly gave one to me. "You'll be fine, my dear," he murmured. "Everything will be fine."

My god... I actually believed him.

"I don't understand." Gibbs actually did sound puzzled. "You were trying to protect her—why not just come forward, tell her what you saw, what you heard? Tell _us_? It was an accident—her involvement, anyway—"

"I thought—" she looked away, staring at the TV screen frozen on her car. "I didn't know."

She _had _thought I was guilty.

_Y'know, if he really deserves… whacking or something… I met a customer a couple of months ago who said she has someone in her office who's—a Mossad officer._

_Mossad? As in Israeli assassin? No, no, I shouldn't even think like that._

_You sure? Public service?_

She hadn't been teasing me to see if I'd rise to the bait. She was testing the waters, to see if I acted guilty. If I _was _guilty.

"You were trying to put the blame on an innocent person—" Gibbs' tone was sharp now.

"No, no, I—" she wriggled in her chair. "I didn't think anything would happen to her—his wife, I mean. She wasn't there—"

"As it happens, she has an ironclad alibi from the time she left her husband—she was with her divorce attorney. But if she hadn't—you were willing to point the finger at an innocent woman, let her be arrested—"

"I had to protect Sandy!"

Gibbs nodded in mock understanding. "Of course. She's your boss, can't have her—"

She threw her hands out pleadingly. "_I love her!_" The cry was wrenched from her soul.

I was suddenly very grateful for the arm still around me because that one sure knocked me for a loop. I stared at the tableau in front of me, mouth open; I'm sure I had a look of pure idiocy on my face.

"_What?_ Evvie, are you—_me?_" I forgot she couldn't hear me.

Me? Evelyn was in love with _me_?

I don't know if it was protocol or not, but Officer David reached over and flipped a switch, muting the speaker. I turned to Ducky—

I caught a sharp breath. "You knew."

"No…" He gave me a sympathetic look. "I suspected."

Okay, color me clueless. This was embarrassing—not that Evelyn had a crush on me, but that I had been so utterly blind... I had completely missed the boat, but someone who had seen her only half a day had picked up on it.

"Let's... go outside and talk," he said quietly. I followed him blindly into the hallway. "How long has Evelyn worked for you?"

"God, ten years? Eleven?"

"And I've been coming to the store for almost twice that long. Don't fault yourself, Cassandra. I watched her hide it from you very carefully. She kept it hidden from everyone—herself, the most, I think."

"But not you."

"Once in a while... very rarely... I would catch a glimpse of what lay beneath the surface. She'd see you across the store, and there would be a flash of—oh, not just admiration, but affection. Love. And then she'd hide it away, and it would be business as usual."

I bit my lip. "She's known me all this time, she knows I'm straight..." I laughed a little. "I used to tease her that she had better taste and luck with women than I did with men, she said, 'Damn straight.'" We laughed over that stupid joke—" I shook my head. "Why...?"

"Cassandra—" he thought for a moment then sighed. "It's actually quite simple. You don't always get to choose with whom you fall in love—you simply _do_."

Hmm.

I chewed on that a moment.

Simple—yes. And pretty damned profound.

"Thanks. I—"

A jaunty whistle coming up the hallway cut me off. Ducky smiled broadly over my shoulder. "Agent DiNozzo, you're certainly in a good mood this afternoon."

"You betcha, Ducky. I love it when suspects can't wait to spill their guts, spewing out a confession faster than you can give them a Miranda." I turned around, and he realized—too late—who was keeping company with Dr. Mallard. The 'oh, shit' look that flashed over his face was a dead giveaway. "Um, is the boss in—" he pointed to the door to the interview room. At that moment the door opened and Agent Gibbs walked out; a split second later, the observation room door opened, and Ray and Officer David joined the crowd. "Boss, how did you know—?"

"How did I know what, DiNozzo?" Gibbs sounded just this side of irritated. He looked around. "Where is the secretary?"

"Mimi," I supplied without thinking.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at me. "Mimi," he amended. He gave DiNozzo a 'well?' look.

"Ah—well—" he fumbled for a moment. "Actually, she's right down the hall... dictating a confession."

Gibbs looked pleasantly surprised. "Don't keep us in suspense."

That was tacit approval to talk in front of guests. "Boss, it was like she was waiting for us to nab her. She started talking before we unsealed the room then she showed us everything—she ground up these pep pills or something, mixed it with sugar at home and brought it in—"

I exchanged a triumphant look with Ray. Perry Mason couldn't have done better than my brother.

"—she just didn't realize how strong the stuff was. Said she distilled it with Everclear—" he shuddered slightly. "Sort of burned off the additives in the pills. Mixed the powder with the sugar, just had no idea it was so strong." He gave a broad grin. "Learned how to do it… on the Internet."

"Why'd she kill 'im?"

"Totally by accident." He glanced at me guiltily. "Seems she and the Commander were a hot and heavy thing for a long time, then he—ah—met Miss Talmadge, here, and—" he shrugged expressively.

Great. I hadn't just been the other woman; I was the _other_ otherwoman.

"She didn't know he was swiping files from the company, but she had a suspicion. She wanted to put the Fear of God into him—" he did a sort of jazz hands/oooh-aaah movement. "Make him sick as a dog, save his life—"

"Ah, the Florence Nightingale syndrome," Ducky said sagely. "Patients who fall in love with the women who nurse them back to health."

"Yeah, but in this case he probably figured his jitters and his heart racing were because he was ripping off a project he could sell on the black market for a few million bucks. So he ignored the symptoms, she pushed harder—" he wagged his head. "Badda bing—"

"Badda boom," Officer David finished, shaking her head. "Where is Lee?"

"Trying to write as fast as she talks. Not easy."

"Ziva—" Gibbs nodded toward the interview room. "Take her statement."

"What—" I swallowed and tried again. I glanced toward the room where Officer David was entering. "Are you going to charge her, is she...?"

He let out a deep breath. "Probably not. She didn't kill him. To anyone else, it would have looked like an accident—fell, hit his head—or natural causes—dropped dead of a heart attack. Most would probably be hindering an investigation." He turned to follow Ziva.

"Agent Gibbs?" He glanced back. "The other day, you said—the scarf—the 'murder weapon'—someone identified it... Who?"

He gave me a sardonic smile. "Mimi."

* * *

-5-


	6. Chapter 6: Presentation Copy

**Chapter Six – Presentation Copy**

_**Presentation Copy—**__a book inscribed by the author to someone else of importance to the author, the book, or society in general._

* * *

At Agent Gibbs' request, Agent DiNozzo (forever Tony the Tiger in my mind) ushered me downstairs to Abby's lair to retrieve my keys. We made a short detour to escort Ray from the building (after I promised to come over Sunday night for dinner and tell any-and-all that happened between now and then).

Music was once again blaring from Abby's office. "Sandy!" She ran over, this time not being stopped before giving me a bone-crushing hug. "I knew you were innocent, I _knew_ you were!" she all but sang. She drew herself up. "But—I could not say that… until science proved me right." She had the pose of someone being honored for the Nobel Prize.

"Abigail Sciuto's tabernacle of empirical evidence," I laughed, craning my neck to look up at her. Holy crap, she was tall. Of course, I was short, too, so it just made it worse. I grinned. I didn't give a damn if I got whiplash.

Tony perked up. "_Medicine Man_. Sean Connery, Lorraine Bracco."

I looked at him with mild astonishment. "Yeah."

"'He treats me like a dawg,'" he quoted, doing a dead on impersonation of Loraine Bracco.

I suddenly flashed on Officer David's comments about the dog collars and tags and started to laugh.

The door behind us whooshed open. "Well, someone's demeanor has improved." Ducky stood off to the side, grinning lopsidedly, hands shoved in his pockets.

"I can't even begin to explain," I giggled.

He stepped closer. "Then don't."

Abby held up the keys to my van. Man, after a week of schlepping on the Metro... "Clutch plate is still warped," she confided. "But I've got a friend who could fix it for a hundred bucks or so. Or..." she gave me a dazzling smile. "Trade credit at the store?"

"Sold." Any friend of Abby's was a friend of mine. I took the keys and let out a deep sigh. It was like getting those keys was a signal: the world was back to normal. "Thank you... for everything."

"Still need help at the store?"

I smiled. "Any time. Alan and Geoff have missed you." I cocked my head. "So have I, of course."

She drew her brows together and almost pouted. "They didn't finish the storeroom, did they?"

I was suddenly glad they had slacked off in her absence. "Not a chance."

The sun came out again. "All right!" Another jarring hug. I was going to have to call a chiropractor if she hung out at the store very much. "See you Saturday morning!"

I grinned back at her. "Saturday."

Ducky made a shooing motion toward Agent DiNozzo. "I can escort Miss Talmadge to the security desk, Anthony."

He started to give a wicked grin but faltered under Ducky's quelling look. "Oh, absolutely Dr. Mallard," he said formally. I almost winced. I could tell from his look—he'd have us screwing in the elevator in ten seconds. "Hey—" he stopped me with a light touch on the wrist. "I just wanted to say... I'm sorry." He was utterly sincere. "Last Friday, at The Dog—" he smiled wryly. "I was... kind of... a jerk. And I'd like to apologize." He held out a hand.

Well… I couldn't fault him for a lascivious mind. I managed a smile. "I wasn't exactly Miss Congeniality myself." I shook his hand.

His eyes lit up. "Sandra Bullock!"

I laughed and shook my head. It was like hanging around a knockoff Remington Steele. Not bad, actually. (Better than camping in jail.)

"See you at The Dog tomorrow?" he asked as I turned to follow Ducky out of the lab.

"Probably not."

"Ah. What a shame," Ducky said as we waited for the elevator.

"Pardon?"

"I was hoping to buy you a drink, my dear."

I smiled; why, Dr. Mallard... are you flirting with me? "Well... I might be there..." I suddenly realized—Evelyn might be cooling her heels behind bars. "We'll see," I managed.

He entered the elevator bay and held his hand over the eye of the door for me to enter safely. I couldn't help but be charmed by his chivalry. "Would I be hasty to ask if you have plans this Saturday evening?"

Wow. I guess he _was _flirting with me. Maybe Agent DiNozzo wasn't that far off. "Not precisely. Well, it's the Saturday before Halloween; everyone wants the night off to party, and sales are—pardon the pun, dead—so I always close early… like, three."

"Do you have a party to attend?"

I shook my head. "Nope. I was going to rent a scary movie, maybe."

"Would you be interested in attending a fancy dress party with me?"

"Fancy dress?" Yikes.

"I'm sorry—costume party."

"Oh." Phew. I started to decline, then I remembered Barb's comment at lunch: 'We have _got_ to get you hooked up with a nice man.' I slowly smiled. "That would be lovely. I haven't been to a costume party in years."

"It's in Reston; I can pick you up—"

"No, please, I'd hate for you to bother—"

"Would you like to join us for dinner first? Mother would love to see you again," he added quickly. "And the party is only a few minutes from where we live."

I was pretty sure he wasn't a "momma's boy." I caught the smile in his eyes; strike 'pretty sure' and substitute 'positive.' "That would be nice. I haven't seen her in years."

He escorted me out of one elevator and into a second. "Mother... isn't quite how you would remember her," he said hesitantly.

I sighed. "None of us are, Dr. Mallard."

He tapped me lightly on the chin. "_Ducky_."

***

Evelyn had left Valerie in charge and she had stepped up to the plate admirably. I knew she wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but hesitated. Finally she screwed up the courage and blurted out, "Are they going to arrest you?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Not even a suspect any more."

She sighed in relief then scrunched up her forehead. "What about Evvie?"

What about Evvie? Damn. I had no clue. I didn't even know how her exit from the building had gone. "They just wanted to ask her some questions for clarification," I said in the most casual tone possible.

Apparently they hadn't dragged her kicking and screaming from the building because Val smiled her sunny smile, said, "Oh, okay!" and bopped off to finish reorganizing the Mystery section.

What about Evvie? Yeah, that was the $64,000 question. They couldn't be so petty as to charge her with obstruction of justice—could they? She hadn't exactly impeded their investigation... much. She just sent them in a slightly different direction for a very short time. It hadn't even been a full week since David had died; we weren't talking months of fruitless investigation. She certainly didn't kill him—what would that be, desecration of a corpse because she strangled a dead man?

As I went about my work on autopilot it kept nagging at me. Not the fact that Evelyn was in love with me—and, according to Ducky, had been for a while—no, that was one of those things that happen and you just keep going forward. I'd been on the receiving end of a couple of unrequited crushes in my lifetime. (I'd been on the giving end far more times.) You just muddle through and keep on truckin'.

But—

I'd never before had someone think I was a murderer—and try to cover it up.

I'd never before had someone try to implicate an innocent person on my behalf.

Okay, I'd never been involved in a murder investigation, period, before this, so we were sailing uncharted waters and about to drift off the edge of the world. Beware—here be dragons.

I know how things would end on a TV movie. "Oh, I never realized you loved me so much that you'd commit crimes to save me!" Hug, kiss; fade to sunset and roll end credits. And, yeah, on the surface it's flattering—no, hell, it's _mind-blowing_—that someone would do that for someone without a ring and marriage lines at the very least. But after the sunset fades you're left with some very disquieting thoughts.

I mean, what do you say to someone?

You were willing to let a murder go unsolved, a murder go unpunished?

You were willing to let an innocent person go to jail on my behalf?

'Thanks' just doesn't sound right.

And while a person's first instinct is to save his or her ass, let the chips fall where they may and screw the other guy if necessary—you can't help but put yourself in the shoes of the other guy. If someone lied and pointed the cops in my direction, I'd be pissed beyond measure. It was a good thing Mrs. Sutton had been camped at her lawyer's, plotting her divorce, or else she would have been on the receiving end of the NCIS hospitality suite. One innocent person put _in_ jail to keep another innocent person _out_. Not exactly a fair trade. We were both guilty of only one thing—loving a con man.

Thank god for science. A hundred years ago, I'd've been seen suspect #1 and stuck in a jail cell to rot until trial… and then found guilty. And it wouldn't have been from someone framing me—no, I would have had the bloodhounds on my scent because _my_ scarf was inadvertently used to cover up what had been perceived as _my_ crime.

The whole thing made my head ache.

And I came back around to the same question: what about Evvie?

Six o'clock gave me my answers.

Alan and Geoff practically danced out the door, high-fiving each other over the idea of an Abby visit on Saturday. Their initial joy had been dampened by Valerie volunteering to help; I smoothed the troubled waters by asking her to help get the computer systems set back up; a call from Agent McGee had let me know that all of my computer crap would be available for pickup the following afternoon. (He had even been kind enough to offer to reinstall all of my programs on my home computer after stripping it to the bones to clear off David's no-no information. No fool, I—I said yes. More accurately, "Hell, yes!" and asked if brownies would be considered bribing a Fed. Apparently they aren't, so I planned to whip up a batch of triple chocolate brownies that night just for him. And maybe he'd tell me why I kept picturing him on the back of a book even though I couldn't find anything written by a Tim or Timothy McGee. It had been in the far back corner of my mind all week and was starting to bug me.)

All of my chattering children scooted out the front door; I locked it behind them and went back to the counter and began the post-closing tedium of running credit tapes and balancing books. Some fifteen minutes later, I heard the back door scrape open. A shiver ran down my spine—I was _sure_ I had locked the back door. Great—dodge a murder rap only to become a crime statistic. Not a chance; I was actually looking forward to Saturday night.

I grabbed the nearest weapon—a two-foot wooden statue, a caricature of Poe—and crept around the stacks until I had a clear view of the back door.

Evelyn.

I almost dropped the statue in relief. "Jesus Christ, I almost gave you brain surgery!" I tossed Poe onto an overstuffed chair and, without thinking, ran over and threw my arms around her. She stiffened up like an over starched shirt. "Sorry." I stepped back and let an awkward silence settle between us. "I was—I was doing the night books, why don't you—" I gestured feebly toward the front of the store.

She walked silently, staring at the floor from a lowered face. Regardless, I could see her eyes: swollen, with red lines like a million miles of back-road maps and shuttered like a summer home in the dead of winter.

I leaned my butt against the front edge of the counter, hands by my hips gripping the overhang to stay standing up. "So," I said with some trepidation, "what's the score?" She didn't answer. "Are they going to charge you with anything? Are you—are you free?" My throat tightened. "Do—do you need a lawyer?" I squeaked out; I damn near cried on the last word.

"No." It was the barest whisper. "No… no charges." She was still staring at the floor, hands clasped before her like a disgraced schoolchild. "I got one hell of a talking to by Agent Gibbs, though." Her laugh was a little hollow, and ended with a gasp and a ghost of a sob.

"Ev—"

I must have made a motion of moving toward her, because she stepped back. "No. Please. I have to… I have to say—" she looked up and I could see her eyes were drowning in tears. "I… am… _so_… _sorry_," she finally got out. She held up a hand, stopping the words I started to stumble out. "I don't think I _really_ thought you had killed him… but I was scared that you had. If that makes any sense." She blinked, and the dam broke. She roughly dragged the cuff of her blouse across her eyes. "Even if it was an accident, I just—" she broke off, shaking her head.

"Yeah." Even if it was an accident… she didn't want me to be blamed. _And was willing to blame someone else, _an imp in my mind piped up. Oh, jeez… it was going to be a mess between us for a long time.

She shoved her hands into the front pockets of her jeans. "I, uh… I left NCIS an hour ago. I was down at The Grind, trying to write—trying to put—I gave up." She swallowed hard, dug a clinking mass out of her right front pocket and set it on the chess table next to her. She took a deep breath then said, "I quit," in a rush.

I was _not_ expecting that.

She pulled something out of her other pocket. Even from a few feet away, I could tell it was her company credit card; she set it next to the sad lump on the chess table. Now I recognized what I had not wanted to a moment before—it was her store key ring, complete with the giant purple rabbit's foot she'd received in the Secret Santa exchange the year before. She was cutting ties, leaving behind anything that linked her to the store. To _me_.

"You can't!" I blurted out. Well, that was brilliant. Of course she could quit. I just didn't want her to.

She shook her head. "I can't _stay_." She started packing back and forth, covering the dozen feet to the door and back over and over. "Sandy… it won't be the same. I thought you killed someone. I thought you were capable of murder!"

"Hey, you said it yourself, I was drunk out of my mind," I floundered. "Anybody can do things when they're drunk—"

She waved her hands in agitation. "It's not just that! Sandy—" she threw her hands out, much as I had seen her in the interrogation room only hours before. "I tried to cover up a crime! I tried to shift the blame to someone else! You can't trust me!" Her hands flew up and buried themselves in her hair. "_I_ can't trust _myself_!" She clenched her fingers, hard. "Gah!" It was a scream of frustration, not pain.

"Evelyn—it's just—my god, you've been here more than ten years—"

"I know." She 'whooshed' out a deep breath. "Ten years." She looked at me sadly. "Ten years."

_You don't always get to choose with whom you fall in love—you simply __**do**__._

Ten years?

"Evvie—what will—" I did a quick editing job. "—_we_ do without you?"

She thought for a long moment. "Survive." She almost smiled. "Like I've had to without _you_."

Boy. _That_ made me feel like the selfish bitch of the year. "Ev—"

"It's okay. Don't say it—please." She rubbed her hands up and down the sides of her hips. "Um—Val—Valerie will be a good replacement. For me. She was a big help this last month, when you were gone on your buying trips—"

"Yeah. Right. Okay," I said blankly.

"I'll—um—I'll come back tomorrow and get my things." I nodded. "Wow. This is the first time I've ever quit a job," she said with a weak laugh.

I shook my head sharply. "No. You're not quitting."

"Cassandra—"

"You're not quitting," I said firmly. "You're—being downsized." I forced out a smile. "It's the economy. Gotta cut back. But you—you've got vacation pay—"

She looked at me, baffled. "Sandy, I used my vacation for Pennsic and Faire—I think I _owe_ you time."

"You've got vacation pay," I said sternly. "Shut up. And if you get laid off, it's two weeks pay for every year you've been here."

Her jaw fell open. "Since when?"

"Since now." I hedged a little. "Well... it'll have to be off the books."

"Um—why?"

"Well… if you get laid off, you can claim unemployment. But any severance pay, vacation pay, they count that before they pay out."

She stared at me a long moment. "Your rates will go up."

I managed a small smile. "First claim in thirty years. Big deal."

"Technically you'll be lying."

"Technically—who gives a shit?" That got her to laugh. "What's a lie—for a friend?"

Her laugh died. She stared at me for a long moment then her gaze dropped.

I sighed. "Ev—it's a tough job market. It's two months until Christmas. I'm not throwing a friend out into the snow."

Her smile echoed mine. Faintly. Very faintly. "It's not snowing."

"It will. And _you_—" she looked at me warily. "Are getting the most kick-ass reference I can write. _Anybody_ who gets you—" I paused so she would know I meant it in every way. "Is damned lucky."

She stared at me for a long time. "I didn't mean to embarrass you," she said softly.

I shook my head. "I wasn't embarrassed. _Ever_."

"Just… not reciprocal."

One slow shake. I looked for something wise, something comforting to say. "I'm sorry," I whispered. It was the best I could manage. It's not many nights you lose your best manager _and_ your best friend all at the same time.

"So am I." She let out a deep breath and looked slightly self-conscious. "Well. Um. I, ah, I'd better get going." She brushed off the sides of her jeans as though she had been crawling around in the storeroom. "Rush hour traffic, long way home…" her voice died off. She started to head for the back door. "I'll be back around lunch, get my stuff, say… good-byes..."

"I'll be here." Her look was pained; _please, don't be_. "You're my best friend, you jerk!" I didn't care if she pushed me away—I closed the gap between us and gave her a hug that would have made Abby proud. "I miss you already!"

After a moment, she hugged me back. "Not as much as I've missed you." One last squeeze, then she all but ran for the back door.

I stood in the aisle, staring into the darkness letting minutes tick by.

The selfish part of me wanted to run after her—dammit, she was my best friend, the store needed her, _I_ needed her—

But the grown-up part of my mind made me stand still. She was right to leave. There would always be that niggling little doubt, that lack of trust—whether from her or me, it didn't matter. And it was beyond unfair to make her stay where she was now so uncomfortable.

It sucks being a grown-up.

A soft knock on the front glass made me turn. I couldn't stop the smile and half-laugh: Ducky.

I unlocked the door and nodded towards the store. "Come on in."

"I was driving home, I saw the lights on…" Like so many men in Washington, he had on an overcoat, hat and scarf against the fall chill. He wasn't going for the fashionable look; instead he looked… endearing. Comforting. "Are you all right, my dear?" He laid a hand on my shoulder.

I blinked, hard. "Evelyn…" I sighed. "Evelyn came by. She… She quit."

"I'm so very sorry." He lightly stroked my arm. "But… I can't say that I'm surprised."

Of course not. He had seen Evelyn's feelings long before I was clued in. I let him slip his arms around me, hugging me as he had hours earlier—only more so, letting me rest my head on his shoulder and holding me _just_ close enough. (Oh, my. He gives _great_ hugs. Even better than Abby.) I sighed, enjoying the feeling as he lightly swayed me to and fro. It would have been nice to stay like that forever—but I had accounts to settle, a store to close and cats to feed before I went home.

As if on cue, Pyewacket came streaking toward us, chased by a half-pound kitten hell bent for leather. He careened off our ankles, jumped to the chess table, sending keys and credit card flying, then leapfrogged to the short case of 78 records then the rack of sheet music, finally coming to rest on the tall, wide case behind the desk that housed all of our can't-live-without-its. For a lardass, he sure can book when he needs to. Having bested the king of the jungle, the kitten turned around, tail straight in the air, and proudly stalked back to the office.

Comic relief was just what we needed. Ducky chuckled, a delightful sound. "Will you be safe if I leave you alone?"

"Yeah—I know where the catnip is stashed."

"Oh—" he pulled an envelope from inside his coat. "I thought if you were closed, I'd slip this under the door…" his cheeks were faintly pink. "But, when I saw you were still here…"

I opened the envelope. Inside was a sheet of driving instructions, ending with a telephone number. I started to smile.

"I'd be happy to pick you up…"

"And miss having a gentleman cook dinner for me? Not a chance." He looked relieved. "What are you going as? I mean, what costume are you wearing?"

He gave me a slightly sly smile. "Shouldn't we surprise one another?"

I grinned, feeling decades younger. "You're on."

*****

For the most part, Friday was anti-climactic. I sent Evelyn a long text message at an early but civilized hour of the morning, telling her if anyone asked I was going to say she had resigned for personal reasons. When it comes to my employees, I'm a mama bear—if you want me to tell everyone you're out for a hangover, fine… just be prepared for the razzing when you come back (and a pink slip on the second occurrence). Otherwise, everything is "personal reasons." I've had very little abuse of the time off over the years; respect goes both ways. I also wrote that, if anyone asked, I would make it clear that she was welcome back at the store at any time if she was able to return—and that was completely true.

After about twenty minutes, I got a reply. "Thank you." She included a smiley face with an asterisk for a tear.

We had both recovered our equilibrium well enough that when she arrived at lunch we were able to joke and tease with the best of them. I had already told Valerie that she was going to be moving up to assistant manager; I didn't want to officially replace Evelyn, just in case there was a problem with unemployment, but I didn't put that out for public consumption. Valerie didn't care what title she got—the raise in pay was what interested her. Smart girl. But she was the first to burst into tears after Ev had taken her personal things out to her car and come in for her last goodbyes. "You can't go!" she bawled, hugging Evelyn and sobbing into her hair.

That started the crush. Evelyn was buried under well-meaning if overwhelming hysteria. Even Geoff and Alan, the big bruisers, looked a little weepy. Evelyn looked over the crowd at me, pleading.

"We didn't even get to get you a cake!" Cherie wailed.

Closure. Cake means closure. Birthday cake, holiday cake, retirement cake—whatever. "Okay, everyone," I said briskly. "Pick up your purses, grab your wallets, we're shutting down for lunch." Distraught faces looked at one another with a new feeling of confusion. "We're taking Evelyn out to lunch. All of us. Well, I'm paying, but we're all going." That got a couple of laughs; good. "We're going to C'est Bonne." Appreciative looks; this was much better than weekend pizza. That would put a dent in the profits for the week—but, hey. "And… we're having a goodbye cake. I promise." I could call them on the way over; by the end of lunch, there would be a cake. Of that I had no doubt.

_Are you sure?_ Evelyn mouthed at me.

_You bet your size four ass,_ I sent back.

_Jealous!_ she grinned.

Maybe… maybe someday things might approach normal again.

Maybe.

***

On the way back from lunch, my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but answered anyway. "Papyrus." I'd forwarded the store phone since the cats were lousy message-takers.

"Sandy!"

For a moment, I wasn't sure. "Abby…?"

"Yes!" she burbled. I laughed; I could picture her in her lab, music blaring and pigtails swinging to the beat. "Ducky says you guys are going on a date!"

I coughed and choked on my leftover iced tea, almost slamming into the car in front of me. "He—he what?" I gasped out.

"Well—_he_ didn't call it a date, _I'm_ calling it a date, _he_ said he asked you to a fancy dress party, _I_ think that's the cutest thing to call a costume party, I've got this party on Tuesday that I'm going to, I have a _great_ costume, that's why I called you—"

Her nonstop talk was like a warm blanket. I let the words wrap around me as I drove. Suddenly I realized there had been an upward inflection on her last word, followed by a silence: a question.

Oops.

"I'm sorry…? I didn't catch that?"

"O… kay," she said slowly, with a small laugh. "What… are… you… wearing?"

I think it was Peter (maybe it was Paul?) of Peter, Paul and Mary who told a great story on himself: he was at a cocktail party, not quite listening to a gentleman, and ended up in the same oh-my-god-he-asked-a-question-I-wasn't-listening moment. He tried to be cool and said, "Well, that's interesting idea… perhaps you could phrase the question a little differently?"

The man looked at him like he was bananas. "Okay—_what are the ages of your children_?"

Taught me the best answer was to just say, "I didn't catch that." Better to be thought of as hard of hearing than stupid.

Well, now I got to be both. "I, uh, don't know."

"_**San**_-dy! It's tomorrow night!"

"_**Ab**_-by!" I said in the same shocked tone. "He only invited me yesterday!"

"Oh." That stopped her. "Good point. Okay, there's still time. I have these friends, they do sort of theatrical productions—"

_I have these friends…_ I laughed to myself. 'My friend the electrician…' 'My friend the mechanic…' 'My friend the theatre geek…' I had a feeling Abby collected friends the way bookstores collect cats: the two just seem to go together.

"—tomorrow morning?"

I had paid attention this time; she wanted to kidnap me for a couple of hours before working on the storeroom. "That would be great. I appreciate it."

"See you at eight. I'll bring doughnuts!"

I laughed and shut the phone. Doughnuts. Better not be a tight fitting costume…!

* * *

-6-


	7. Chapter 7: Watermark

**Chapter Seven****– Watermark**

_**Watermark**__—a faint identifying design, usually in quality paper._

A date.

Abby called it a _date_.

One week after one of the worst breakups on record, and I was out on a date.

I must be _nuts_.

It didn't help that, during Evelyn's farewell lunch, I had let it slip about tonight. "You're going to a party with Dr. Mallard?"

I had nodded, uncertain of how to proceed.

To my relief, she looked happy. "I'm glad. He's very nice. I was trying to scope him out for you the other day—" When I looked surprised, she laughed. "Sandy… I told you. You're a great gal—and you deserve better. I think he might be the right one for you."

So why was I sitting two miles away from his house in a shopping center parking lot, burning gas and trying to not turn around and go home?

Because I was scared out of my wits. Scared I'd screw up again.

More scared that Evelyn might be right.

I let out a deep breath and put the van into gear. Scared or not, my parents didn't raise their kids to cancel a dinner invitation ten minutes before plates were to set down. Trying not to feel like I was going to my doom, I followed that last turns of Ducky's precise directions and pulled up in front of a large two-story house. _You can do this. Get back on the horse!_

I tried not to crush the tissue-wrapped flowers as I walked up the path. 'Flowers, candy or wine' had been drummed into me from school age. After last week, I wasn't inclined to buy any liquor; doctors are notoriously anti-sweets; thank god for fall flowers. I knocked on the front door and heard a chorus of tiny yaps in response. Oh, crap—he had mentioned his mother had dogs. This was _not_ a good costume to be dodging doggies in.

One of the doors opened and an elderly woman peered out. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Mallard?" I actually recognized her from her long-ago visits. She hadn't changed much over the years.

"Yes…?"

"I'm Cassandra Talmadge. I'm a friend of—" I suddenly realized that 'Ducky' probably wasn't what his mother called him. "Your son's," I finished weakly.

"Yes…?" Small gold and white dogs milled about her feet, yapping and looking at me with great interest.

"He invited me to join you for dinner—and to a cost—ah, fancy dress party?"

"Oh…" she looked at me in great puzzlement. "Is that—is that a _costume_?"

No, I always run around with a parasol and looking like I'm going to bust out in 'Ascot Gavotte.' "Ah, yes ma'am, it is." Visions of Agent McGee flashed before me; I had used the hated word ma'am. Twenty lashes with a piece of overcooked spaghetti.

"But—you look like a _lady_," she said, still confused.

"Ah—thank you." I chose not to launch into my Audrey Hepburn imitation.

I could hear footsteps behind her. "But this is a _costume_?" She almost sounded indignant.

"Yes—"

She drew herself up to full height and smacked her cane on the floor. "Show me your knickers!" she demanded.

I gasped in amused shock and tried not to laugh. Behind her, I heard the anguished cry of, "_Mo_-ther!" from a very mortified Ducky.

"If you truly are a lady—you knickers will show it!"

Ducky was close enough that I could see him. "Oh, mother!" It was half-sigh, half-groan. He looked absolutely miserable.

I giggled.

I tried hard not to. Really. I bit my lip, I pinched my wrist, I tried thinking sad thoughts. It didn't work.

My giggle turned into a laugh. "Hi, ah, Du-Du—Donald," I finally managed, dragging his given name up from the depths. I held out the flowers. "Thank you. I am—" I composed myself somewhat and gave him what I hoped was a dazzling smile. "I am so glad—to be here tonight. Thank you for inviting me." Absolute, on-the-witness-stand, sworn-oath truth. Nerves gone, confidence restored. I kicked myself for having ever hesitated; I was already having a great time.

He took the flowers with one hand and drew me into the house with the other, his mother giving me a look that didn't quite qualify as an evil eye. Barely. "Thank you for joining us." He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, ignoring the "Harrumph!" to the side. "You look smashing," he whispered in passing. I knew I was blushing. "Dinner will be ready in just a moment. Would you like a cocktail?" he asked in more normal tones.

Took guts to ask that question. "Mineral water, club soda?"

He escorted us to the drawing room ('living room' just doesn't fit in a house like that) and left us with club soda on the rocks for me—and a very watered down Scotch for his mother. He retired (fled?) to the kitchen to finish dinner and his mother sat ramrod straight on the settee, watching me warily over the edge of her glass.

"Mrs. Mallard?"

"Yes?" she asked suspiciously. Her tone made me glad for my idea.

I made a show of looking around. "It wouldn't have been… _proper_… while Donald was here, but..." I shinnied up the tight skirt—no mean feat, even though the stage costume was in forgiving stretch material—and showed off the loose cotton leggings over my own underwear. The costumer had talked me into wearing them (she called them "not bloomers"), saying they made the line of the gown smooth. (She was right.) Upon hearing the date/it's not a date was with Abby's beloved 'Duckman,' she had insisted on showing up at the store to help me with my hair and makeup, too. I had to admit—I looked darn good.

And apparently my 'knickers' passed muster. Mrs. Mallard actually smiled at me and patted the seat next to her. I obediently sat. For the next several minutes, she regaled me with a scrambled program of tales—her dogs (Corgis, apparently), her son (whose age jumped from college to grade school and back within paragraphs), her lack of grandchildren (she gave me a speculative look—I changed the subject as quickly as possible) and the spy across the street.

I was relieved when Ducky came back to bring us into the dining room for dinner. "Mother, I've told you—Mr. Eller is a _bird_ enthusiast. He's not a spy. He uses his binoculars for _bird _watching_."_

"Pah!" was her response. She allowed her son to take her arm and guide her down the hall. Just inside the doorway, she stopped and grasped his arm. "Donald!" she whispered excitedly.

"What, Mother?" He looked concerned.

"She's a _lady_," she said sagely. She had forgotten I was standing right behind them. "_I've seen her knickers!_"

I clamped my lips together and rocked on my heels, barely smothering my laughter. He turned and looked over his mother's shoulder, at a loss for words. "Oh," he finally managed. He looked—well, _astonished_ is probably the closest word. I almost choked on the buried giggles. "That's… very… _nice_… Mother."

She turned and smiled up at me. "Donald makes a lovely Yorkshire pudding, my dear."

She was right. He did.

Once dinner was over and the night nurse had arrived, Ducky hurried upstairs to change, leaving me to wander alone downstairs for a few minutes. I looked around politely, but refrained from poking too closely. It was what my grandmother would have called a "handsome" room, very neat, very coordinated, with nice, solid furniture. A little too floral for my taste, but I could see Mrs. Mallard's hand in that. Definite feeling of Ducky, too: neatly shelved record albums (and CDs; he wasn't afraid of new technology), pretty gee-gaws, tchotchkes and dust catchers… and books. Lots of books.

I didn't doubt for a minute that Abby's books were arranged according to LoC; Ducky's were simply broken down by subject, with photos and whatnots between the areas. All sorts of nonfiction topics, everything from art to zoology. And plenty of fiction, heavy on the mysteries.

He had recognized the reference book on the Globe restoration because he owned a copy of the book; it was tucked neatly next to a set of annotated Shakespeare with—oh, wow!—Arthur Rackham illos. (I barely managed not to drool.) I pulled out the volume containing "The Tempest" and moved closer to the study lamp.

The book fell open to Act IV, scene 1; apparently Ducky was fond of Prospero's speech as well.

_We are such stuff as dreams are made on_

_And our little life is rounded with a sleep._

Such stuff as dreams are made on… for good or for bad.

David was definitely a dream, a pipe dream. His marriage was a sham, his loyalty to his government, to his company as baseless as his promises to me… Prospero's spirits had more substance. He had created a life on dreams and fantasy, and it carried through to everyone around him: his wife, me—even Mimi.

Evelyn? I sighed. Her love for me was a dream; in a different existence, it could have been a reality. But in the here and now it turned into a dream that had her hoping against hope and marking time for years, even willing to perpetrate crimes for that dream.

It wasn't so much being the stuff dreams were made on as being damaged or destroyed by the them.

But… dreams aren't always bad. Barb's dreams had brought her back to school; now that she was about to hit the big five-oh they had her well on the way to her own law degree. Val's dreams of a higher career had given her the courage to take over Evelyn's slot with a new confidence and maturity that gave me hope for the coming months. It was all in what dreams you chose—were they things that would fade away at the morning light, "and leave not a rack behind"… or were they dreams you could craft to a new reality?

Dreams.

_And what about your dreams?_ my impish inner voice asked.

I shook my head slightly and returned the book to the shelf. It was too soon to be asking about _my_ dreams.

"Professional curiosity?" came from the doorway behind me.

I smiled; he has a very pleasant voice, even when sneaking up from behind. "Yep."

"The cookbooks are all in the kitchen."

"Appropriate." I turned around; he was standing in the door, wearing an older-style suit—nineteen-thirties or forties, I guessed—in a dark brown. The meaning was lost on me.

"Shall we, my dear?"

Falling into character, I gave him a small curtsey of acquiescence and collected my parasol and outrageous hat from the chair by the fireplace. (Thank god the dogs hadn't decided to nest on them during dinner.) I followed him outside to the garage; when he opened the door, I laughed. "It was you!"

"Pardon?"

"Last Saturday morning!" I looked over the vintage car with respect. "I was standing outside, you drove by—I thought, 'wow, that is a _gorgeous_ car.'"

"Thank you." He looked pleased at my appreciation. All men like it when you make nice-nice about their cars. I don't care how sexist that sounds—it's true. He gave my hat an appraising look. "We can drive with the top down," he said hesitantly. "Or—"

"I'll hold it on my lap," I said quickly. It was cold, and besides—I wasn't up for chasing the damn thing down the street.

He handed me into the car, making sure my layers of fabric were safely inside before shutting the door. He hopped into the driver's side, backed the car ("A Morgan, my dear.") out and hit the remote to shut the door.

True to his word, the party was only a few minutes away; barely time to start a conversation. I used the side mirror to adjust my hat and anchor it with the enormous hatpin. (It was a toss up between bare head and hat—the hat was gorgeous, but so was the magic Abby's friend had performed on my hair.) "Ready or not, here I go," I muttered. I stood and saw Ducky adjusting a battered fedora on his head. "I have to ask, Ducky. Who are you? What is your costume from?"

He tipped his hat back and struck a rakish pose. Indiana Jones? Nah. He grinned. "Aah, c'mon, schweetheart," he said. Not a bad Bogart—if you ignored the English accent (with just a slight hint of Glasgow in the background).

I grinned in return. "Not _The African Princess_," I said, trying to think of Bogart movies. "_Maltese Falcon_?"

He shook his head. "Meet me in—"

"St. Louis?" I finished doubtfully. That didn't sound right. That was Judy Garland and… oh, man, somebody who wasn't Bogart. NCIS' resident Remington Steele would know, of course.

"_Casablanca_," he said patiently in his normal voice.

"Ohhhh. Of course. 'Play it, Sam.'"

"Correct. Most people misquote it as, 'Play it _again_, Sam.' Agent DiNozzo corrected me the other day." He held out his arm and I slipped my free hand through the crook of his elbow. "Thish could be the shtart of something beautiful," he misquoted. I must admit—I kind of liked "something beautiful" instead of "a beautiful friendship."

I smiled up at him.

Maybe… just maybe… he was right.

* * *

-7-

* * *

Definitions courtesy IOBA (Independent Online Booksellers Association).

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